Family Jewels (Dix Dodd Mystery #2)

Chapter 7

I am not stuffy and boring, contrary to what Mrs. P might claim to my all-too-agreeable mother. I’m a PI, for God’s sake. Posing as an erotica writer, no less. How is that boring?

Okay, maybe it didn’t help my image that the only two things I bought at the mega-mega mall were a turtleneck sweater and some granny panties. But I look great in turtleneck sweaters. And honestly, what woman doesn’t really love her granny panties?

Speaking of the mall, I’m here to tell you that no one on the planet can outshop Mrs. Jane Presley. Not outshop as in who can spend the most money the fastest, but as in bargain hunting. Mrs. P could find steals like nobody’s business. And she was quick about it, which was good. Both of us wanted to get back to Mother as soon as we could. But not too soon. I really think Katt Dodd needed some time alone for a damn good cry. Get it out of her system, and step up to the plate again.

No, Mrs. P was not the dallying type. More like a general with a battle plan. She got in, she got out, and she invariably got what she came for at bargain-basement prices. Which was great with me. My traipsing through the granny panty aisle notwithstanding, I’m not the shopping type. Though Mrs. Presley did dither once. She spent more than a few minutes pondering a completely tacky Florida Gators bobblehead collection. She kept tapping their little plastic helmeted gator skulls and setting them … well, bobbling.

She didn’t buy them (thank God!). But she did get great buys on the perfect jerseys for the boys, which had her smiling from ear to ear. And for a moment, Mrs. Jane Presley really did look like a sweet little old lady to me, standing in line to pay for the shirts for her boys. Family. Strange, the warm feeling that gave me.

Which lasted all of two minutes. Right up until Mrs. P led me to the men’s underwear section.

The underwear she held up to her waist went around her twice. She nodded her head knowingly. “These’ll fit Craig all right. He’s lost a little weight. Probably lost more since I’ve been gone.” Apparently Craig was a boxers man (which raised every man a notch in my humble opinion). Mrs. Presley stretched out the waist of the underwear; she pulled at the crotch. She examined the stitching at the hem and she rolled the fabric between her fingers. Okay, this was just a tad much. Truthfully, I was growing a little impatient as she started humming and hawing through the multi-colored packages.

“Well, this is the style and size. But which do you think Craig would like, Dix?” she finally asked. “Think he’d like the white, green or red?”

Well, everyone knows white underwear is the dumbest invention known to humankind. And green always seems well … just too damn grassy. Craig wasn’t the Tarzan type. “I think red would be best, Mrs. P,” I answered, hoping like hell we’d be moving along now.

“Red it is, then!” She tossed six pair of red men’s boxers into her shopping cart. “I’ll tell Craig you thought the red underwear would suit him best.”

Lovely. Gee, thanks. And thanks, too, for saying it so loudly.

I couldn’t see the smart-assed smile on her face as she walked ahead of me pushing that cart (past all the inquisitive underwear-buying gentlemen who were staring at me now), but damn, I knew it was there.

It wasn’t too far to the sock aisle. Mrs. Presley pulled onto her hands a few pairs of the display socks (they went up to her armpits). Three pairs later she found the ones she wanted for Cal.

“Cotton, Mrs. P?”

“Cotton, Dix.”

With a satisfied nod to the cashier, she pulled the money out of her fanny pack and paid. Then she shoved the parcels at me to carry.

“All set?” I asked.

“Just a quick stop at the magazine store for my crossword books. Were you hoping I’d forget?”

“Of course I wasn’t.”

Of course I was. Crossword books … yeah right! My three letter word for derrière.

I had every confidence Mrs. P was buying more circle-a-word books under the ruse of crosswords to have some more fun with Dylan and me on the way home (yeah, like I’d be talking dirty on a fully packed jumbo jet).

All in all, it was a good morning out. And then we were set for the good morning in. We were back in plenty of time for the mid-morning gathering in the Wildoh Recreation Room.

So was everybody else.

~*~

There was still a worried look on my mother’s face, but I was glad to see that at least it was behind the Pinch-Me Pink lipstick.

Mother was dressed in a soft brown, long-sleeved caftan blouse, crisp white Capri pants (at least one Dodd woman can iron) and open-toed sandals. She’d painted her toenails to match her fingernails — a pretty pink that perfectly matched her lipstick. Mother wore antiqued gold half-moon earrings, and a matching necklace. Actually it was the set I’d sent to her last Christmas, the one Dylan had helped me pick out. But Mother’s wrists were still watchless. And I knew she was conscious of the fact as she kept her arms straight down at the sides, thus the sleeves falling down over her wrists at all times.

But leave it to Katt Dodd to look like a million bucks as she stared down the suspicious gang that would be gathered in the Wildoh Recreation Room. Leave it to her to get the crying over and done with, then throw back the shoulders, and go face them all. She wouldn’t be wilting in the corner. No way in hell.

But that was a woman for you.

No matter who was saying what — loudly or in whispers — Katt Dodd would face them all.

And she damn well did.

The hush was absolutely complete when we — Mother, Mrs. P, and I — swung open the doors to the rec room. The silence was short-lived, of course, but damned obvious. As were the quick turn-away snubs and the curt smiles and nods delivered by others. I read people — I read people very well — and these few seconds after entry were more than a little telling of what was on the minds of the Wildoh residents.

Beth Mary gave half a wave to Mother without a full half glance. Yes, she was heading toward the kitchen and moving at a pretty good clip when we came in, but still, there was no warmth whatsoever in that greeting, only caution.

Tish did a little snort-huffy thing and bobbed a hand to her perfect hair. “Hello, Katt,” she said, every fucking syllable breaking down and standing out on its own. “Any sign of Frankie Morrell yet?”

Bitch.

“Afraid not, Tish,” Mother answered. “But if you’re back out trolling the swamp later, let me know if you see him, okay?”

Harriet Appleton apparently had another great big stick up her butt this morning and didn’t bother to pivot on it to so much as look in Mother’s direction. And Wiggie was looking, well … Wiggie-ish … as he slouched in his tracksuit beside her. He glanced up at us, and gave the barest of smiles. All in all, there were more than a few cold shoulders turning toward my mother.

And a couple very warm ones.

“Hey, over here!” called Mona with a great big wave and smile from her crib-playing corner, and we headed in that direction. From the look of woe on Roger’s face, he was already set back a bit. Roger, ever the gentleman, stood when we approached the table. His smile to Jane was genuine, but to me and Mother, less so. Not that it changed from one of us to the next, but that it didn’t as it moved along the row. It was just that plastic … just that forced. Mother took a seat beside Mona. Mrs. Presley sat opposite her and I sat between them, again so that my back was to the wall.

“That’s it for me, Mona,” Roger said.

“Are you sure, Roger? I’m up for another game.”

I didn’t like the desperation in Mona’s voice. The flash of it in her eyes.

“Quite sure,” Roger answered. “I’m down twenty on the week. Besides, I want to get my hands on Beth Mary’s buns before everyone else does.”

Ever the gentleman? What kind of place was this? Retirement home for geriatric pervs?

“Close your mouth, Dix,” Mother said. “He means her sticky buns.”

I blinked. “And that makes it better?”

“The sticky buns that you bake, Dix,” Mother said dryly. “You know … that thing people sometimes do with their ovens?”

“Geez, Mother!” I rolled my eyes appropriately. “I figured that.”

I hadn’t figured that. Sticky buns?

“Beth Mary makes them a couple times a week,” Mother said. “She cooks them in the oven down here so we can enjoy them hot. And they are just to die for.”

Huh. I couldn’t picture denturally-challenged Beth Mary eating sticky buns. (Then I could picture it and I shuddered.) But from the group gathered around her in the kitchen now as she was taking two pans out of the oven, and the group just outside the door waiting with napkins in hand, she must be pretty good at making them. There were a few abstainers, notably Tish — wearing stilettos and a pair of pants so tight they were biting back — standing in the corner talking to Big Eddie. No wonder she wouldn’t wait in line for a bun. One bite of sticky bun and the seams would rip. But food was probably the last thing on her mind. Currently, she was finger-walking (somehow I always hurt the guy whenever I tried this) her way along Big Eddie’s shirt — right from his custom-made state of Florida belt buckle to the start of his he-vage (we’re talking maybe a 3-inch trip here). Eddie was so giddy he full-body giggled. I could hear the charms around his neck rattling clear across the room. Like a life-sized bobblehead.

Mona got up. She’d seen what was going on. Hell, everyone had. And she’d been a damn site more patient with things than I would have been. “Well, guess crib’s over for awhile. Want me to grab a sweet for you ladies?”

“Grab one for all three of us,” Mother instructed.

“Oh not for me thanks,” I began. “I’m—”

I’m … shutting up now thanks to that good kick in the shin!

“Sorry,” Mother continued. “Yes, Dix, Jane and I would each love one. Could you grab napkins too while you’re up? We’ll take ours to go.”

“Sure I will….” Mona walked away, holding her hand to her pocket as she went. She looked to Tish and Eddie flirting in the corner but walked right on by.

I looked at mother questioningly as I bent down to rub my shin. “What was that all about?”

Mother leaned over to me and spoke just low enough for Mrs. P and I both to hear. “Mona’s having a hard time these days. Financially, that is. I always ask her to get me a bun … or whatever else someone might be having, and then conveniently forget to take it with me. She takes it with her, calls later, and I tell her not to bother bringing it over. It’s not much, but it’s a little something for her.”

“That seems like a lot of … well, running around to give Mona an extra sticky bun.”

Mother shrugged.

“Why doesn’t she just grab a couple for herself. I’m sure nobody would mind.”

“You don’t know Mona Roberts. She wouldn’t ask for a handout if it killed her. She’s generous … to a fault, perhaps. When she could give, she always did. But these days … well, lets just say it’s easier for Mona to take a leftover sticky bun or two than it is for her to ask for a second one in front of everyone.”

“How do you know that her finances are so bad?” Mrs. P asked. “Did she tell you?”

Excellent question. One that had been on the tip of my tongue. Well, it would have been. Eventually. When I’d thought of it.

“God, no. She’d never say anything. But I suspected it, and Big Eddie confirmed it.”

Mother saw me frown. “I know what you’re thinking, Dix. He shouldn’t have broken her confidence.” She sighed. “Tell you the truth, I’m not so sure Eddie didn’t figure it out for himself rather than Mona telling him. He’s a pretty smart guy. And I’m Mona’s best friend. He discussed this with me because he’s worried about her, too. And because he was worried about me.”

I gave her the old raised-eyebrow look.

“He wanted to make sure I was all right.” She shrugged. “Eddie helps a lot of the widows out with things like that, Dix. He knows a lot about business and investments. Like it or not, years ago women just didn’t do any of that sort of thing. Husbands did. They drove the car and mowed the lawn and looked after everything else. Eddie just likes to make sure everyone’s looked after … that’s all.”

“What about Tish? She’s staying with Mona, right?”

“She’s staying with her, but she’s not helping her one damn bit. In fact, if anything, every day Tish McQueen is there, it gets a little harder on Mona. In every way. Let’s just say there’s only so much to go around. And Tish wants a bit of everyone’s share.”

I looked over to Big Eddie and Tish still talking in the corner. Big Eddie reached into his pocket and pulled out a golf ball wrapped in a napkin. Well, technically it wasn’t wrapped in a napkin, so much as Big Eddie was shaking a sticky napkin off his fingers as he pulled the golf ball out. Apparently, the decider himself got first dibs on the sticky buns. That’s why his fingers were sticky.

Using his other hand, Big Eddie re-deposited the napkin in his polyester pants pocket. He was holding the ball up for Tish in one hand and with an animated slice to the other, showing her just how far it could be shot. Tish reached for the ball, but with a wink and a mile-wide smile, Big Eddie pocketed it again. And no, Tish’s reach didn’t follow into Big Eddie’s pocket, but the look she gave him seemed to say someday it might. Then she turned and sashayed away toward the kitchen herself.

“Wonder what’s so special about those balls….” Mrs. P murmured.

A dozen smart-assed remarks leapt to mind, but I resisted giving voice to any of them.

My mother turned to me with one eyebrow delicately arched. Clearly she’d expected me to return that perfect lob.

I shrugged. “Too easy.”

Mother turned back to Mrs. P. “I don’t know what’s up with those golf balls, Jane. But I do know that whenever Eddie has Mona out there practicing her swing, she can’t shoot worth a damn with the regular white balls, but give her one of those colorful lucky ones and she can drive it half way across the lake.”

“Kind of like magic, Katt?” Mrs. P asked, in all seriousness.

“Maybe.” Mother’s smile was small, but it was real. “Magic’s a funny thing, Jane. A pretty great thing when it’s used right. Used for good, you know.” Inexplicably, her eyes welled up with tears. Be damned if she’d let them fall though; not in front of everyone. And Mrs. P and I both gave her a few silent minutes to put them back in check.

Of course, there had to be a logical explanation for the orange golf ball success. One that had nothing to do with magic. Or even luck, as Eddie maintained. The most likely explanation for their fantastic flight being that Big Eddie had replaced the regulation golf ball with something heavier or otherwise juiced up to make it fly just that much further. Or maybe Big Eddie had so convinced his clients that there was magic in that colored ball, they could shoot it to the moon if they wanted too.

However, I would never say any of this to Mother. And not just because she obviously needed a minute here, and not because she did not always appreciate my cynicism. I wouldn’t say anything because there was a fight breaking out in the kitchen.

Nothing was breaking. No fists were being thrown. No one was getting a good old-fashioned beat down. But the yelling that was coming from that little kitchen was enough to clear it.

“Tish McQueen, you’re nothing but a no-good, two-bit flirt!” Mona accompanied her proclamation with a stamp of her foot. “Everything I have, you want! And I’m damn tired of it!”

“There’s nothing two-bit about me,” Tish shot back. “And if you’re referring to Big Eddie, I wouldn’t be so damn sure he’s yours after all.” She bobbed a hand to her hair, though those blond locks were pretty much frozen in place with styling product. “Eddie Baskin has an eye for the ladies, Mona. Can I help it if he likes the pretty ones better?”

“Oh, since when did you become a lady?”

“Good one, Mona!” Mrs. P called across the room. She never was the queen of subtle.

Tish sent an icy glare in our direction, and if looks could kill, Mrs. P would be toes up. But they can’t, so Mrs. Presley just smiled back at Tish. Tish’s glare lasered back to Mona.

I kicked Mother under the table. No, not with the shut-up assault to the shin she’d given me earlier. More like a look-at-me tap, which I followed with the eyebrows raised what-do-you-think? look.

She leaned in. “This has been a long time coming,” she whispered. “Tish has been after Eddie since the first day she got here. Well, Eddie and everyone else. She was always flirting will all the men. Frankie too.” Mother’s lips drew thin here. She touched each of her wrists again and looked down as if she’d forgotten that the watch he’d given her was missing.

I trained my gaze back on the confrontation in the kitchen. Tish was staring hard at Mona, and Mona was staring right back. If I thought Tish’s stare had been icy, it was nothing compared to the frost in her voice when she spoke.

“Well, then, Mona Roberts,” she said, icicles dripping from the words, “suppose I just leave. Suppose I just pack up my bags this very night and head back to Alberta. I’ve lots to do there. Lots of business to conduct and lots of friends to see. Look after my other interests for a while. Maybe that would be best for all concerned.”

In two seconds flat, the look on Mona’s face dropped from furious anger to fearful panic.

“Well, I … I really don’t want you to leave, Tish.” Mona mumbled the words.

“Pardon me?” Tish leaned closer.

Bitch. She’d heard Mona perfectly well. I cringed as Mona repeated her statement, loud enough for everyone to hear.

Tish waved a dramatic hand. “Well, it sure doesn’t seem that way to me.”

“I … I’m sorry, Tish.”

“Sorry or not, I should go anyway. I’m not sure I like it here anymore.”

“Please stay.”

Jesus, it killed me to watch Mona so completely chastised and thoroughly defeated.

Everyone was staring at Mona now.

Mother leaned in to whisper — without a prompting kick beneath the table this time — and I had to strain to hear her. “This I just don’t understand. I’d have her sorry ass packing in a heartbeat if I were Mona.”

“Maybe she’s paying her rent?”

“Mona says she’s not.”

Tish, looking smug and self-satisfied, was about to rain another berating storm down upon Mona. A distraction was needed. Like a titillating Daphne Delicious tale. I was just about to heave a stage sigh and invite them to circle around when another distraction entered the room and I put my porn-primed mind on hold.

The brand new security guard, Dylan Hardy, strode into the room, followed very closely by Big Eddie whose shorter legs scissored to keep up.

Damn, he looked good. Dylan, not Big Eddie. And all over again, thoughts of the night before teased through my mind, causing sensations to tease through other parts.

With put-on awkwardness (“Hello, sir. Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”), Dylan was introduced around the room. Apparently, the taker-charger had sneaked out of the room when the kafuffle started to get Dylan, no doubt thinking security might be warranted. Or more likely thinking if anything could break the tension of the Mona/Tish confrontation, the handsome new security guard could.

He was right.

When Dylan’s eyes met mine, there was an incredible, unspoken exchange. A barely-there smile packed with knowing, and not letting let on.

Of course, Beth Mary was the first one over to greet him. She gave him a welcoming hug. A long, drawn out (get your hands off his ass, you dirty old woman!) welcoming hug. Tish apparently forgot about Eddie Baskin as she introduced herself to Dylan. And it was with unmistakable, sad relief that Mona introduced herself. Mrs. P was in the kitchen this time, helping herself to a coffee and searching the cupboards for the sugar. And grinning, of course. She stopped long enough on the way back to the table with coffee in hand to ask Dylan, “Are you any good at crosswords, young man?”

“So what do you think, Mother?” I said still staring at Dylan. “Going to go introduce yourself?”

But there was no answer.

While I’d been watching Dylan at this Mona-rescuing meet and greet, Mother had disappeared.