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  Gracie’s smile widened, and her eyes shone behind her wire-rimmed glasses. “She’ll agree.”

  Apparently Gracie knew something I didn’t or she’d had too much happy juice with her dinner. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I’m writing a book. All this peace and quiet has given me plenty of time to think. And work.”

  “A book?” Did Gracie really think she could support herself by writing? As a former librarian, I knew how few writers earned a decent living without keeping their day jobs.

  “It’s a tell-all exposé,” she said. “I’m calling it Heartbeats: Thirty Years Behind the Scenes. I got to thinking about what skills I’ve learned from working with Jolene, and it hit me. I don’t need skills. I know where all the bodies are buried.”

  “Dishing dirt can get you sued.”

  “Oh, I don’t intend to publish it. Just put it into a safety-deposit box as insurance.”

  Beside me, Roger woofed softly, rolled onto his side and kneaded my thigh with all four feet, chasing rabbits in his sleep.

  “When you give Jolene my demands,” Gracie said, looking pleased with herself, “you can mention the book.”

  “That’s blackmail,” I said. “She could have you arrested.”

  Gracie shook her head. “Worst move she could make. Think of the publicity—and the interest in the book—my arrest would cause.”

  Gracie had a point, but I didn’t relish being the one to break the news of her book to Jolene. I consoled myself with thoughts of Jolene’s hefty retainer, promised to contact Gracie after I’d spoken with Jolene upon her return from Cancún, and left.

  On the drive home, I laughed out loud. Jolene was in for a surprise. Given time to herself, mousy little Gracie had grown a backbone.

  And big teeth.

  CHAPTER 17

  Sunday morning, with two murder investigations dead in the water, I enjoyed the rare luxury of a leisurely breakfast on my patio. Over coffee and frozen muffins nuked in the microwave, I read the Times and watched the comical brown pelicans for which my town was named divebomb for fish in St. Joseph Sound. An endless line of boats streamed through the channel, headed for deep-sea fishing or a day on Caladesi’s famous beaches.

  My morning destination was less alluring. As soon as I’d given her time for breakfast and a round with her doctor, I’d head to the hospital for a visit with Mother. Knowing that I’d sooner have a root canal filled me with guilt, until I remembered Seton Fellows’s revelations. My mother and her insecurities were responsible for the uneasy state of our relationship, not me. As long as I could hold on to that fact—or until I came face-to-face with her—I refused to let her intimidate me.

  But, as always, Mother kept me off balance. I arrived at her hospital room to find that she’d been released just minutes earlier. Determined to be the good daughter, I drove to her house.

  Estelle answered the door. “Your mama’s done gone to sleep. She’s glad to be back in her own bed.”

  “She climbed the stairs?”

  “Wouldn’t hear of sleeping in the guest room, no matter how hard Miss Caroline begged.”

  “Is Caroline here?”

  Estelle nodded. “Having coffee in the kitchen. Come in. I’ll pour you a cup.”

  I stepped inside and followed Estelle down the hall.

  Caroline looked up with surprise when I entered the kitchen. “What are you doing here?”

  “I must have just missed you at the hospital. Thanks for telling me Mother was checking out.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t know it myself until Dr. Katz made his rounds. Mother insisted on coming home. Said he couldn’t keep her against her will.” Caroline shrugged. “You know Mother.”

  Although Caroline was impeccably dressed in navy slacks and a white pullover and her makeup was perfection, her smart clothes couldn’t hide the weary slump of her shoulders, and her expensive powders and creams didn’t conceal the shadows under her eyes. I felt a twinge of remorse at having left Mother’s care to my sister, even though I knew that’s what Mother had preferred.

  “Anything I can do to help here?” I hoped to be assigned a task that would assuage my guilt and took the mug of coffee Estelle had poured for me.

  Caroline shook her head. “I ordered a hospital bed for the guest room, but it looks as if I’ll have to cancel that. Mother insists on using her own room and resuming her normal routine.”

  “Is that safe?” I asked.

  “Safer than getting her dander up,” Estelle said with a grunt. “Ain’t nobody on this earth able to say no to Miz Skerritt.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Caroline agreed, and her voice reflected her fatigue.

  “Go home,” I told her. “I’ll stay here today in case Mother needs something.”

  Caroline cast me a grateful glance, pushed back from the table and stood. “She’ll probably sleep for hours. She complained that with all the noise and poking and prodding, she didn’t sleep a wink during her stay at the hospital.”

  “I can handle Miz Skerritt,” Estelle said. “No need for you girls to hang around here, twiddling your thumbs.”

  Caroline looked at me and shrugged. “She’s right. But staying is up to you. If you don’t have anything better to do—”

  “I could come back later,” I said, “when she’s awake.”

  But I wasn’t sure how much of my company, if any, Mother wanted.

  “How ’bout I call if she needs you?” Estelle said.

  “Good idea,” I said, and, feeling like an escaping felon, I fled to my car.

  Two messages were waiting on my answering machine. The first was from Adler, wanting me to call him at home. I was glad to hear that he was spending Sunday morning with his family. He’d been working at the station when I’d talked with him last night to report on the futility of my interview with Georgia Harding. I hoped his latest message meant he’d turned up another lead, so I returned his call.

  “Anything new?” I asked when he answered the phone.

  “Yeah, we picked up that young hooker in the park last night, and she worked with the sketch artist. Porter and I will start hitting the bars around Crest Lake with the sketches after lunch. Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone will ID Fisk’s killer.”

  “Take Deirdre’s photo, too. Maybe someone saw them together.” Bill and I had already shown Deirdre’s picture to employees at bars and restaurants around Crest Lake Park, but no one had recognized her. Maybe with Deirdre’s face paired with the sketch of her killer, Adler would get a lucky break.

  “Already thought of that,” Adler said, but in an easy manner that indicated no offense at my meddling.

  “What about the hooker? Was she charged?” I’d thought often of the young girl since encountering her on the park bench and wondered if she’d survive the life she’d chosen.

  “No, but Mary Garrabrant, one of our detectives who’s good with young people, talked her into entering a shelter for abused women. The kid is terrified of her pimp, but she’ll be safe there. With some help, maybe she’ll straighten herself out.”

  “Good. Let me know if you get a hit on the sketches. Better yet, call Malcolm on his cell phone.”

  My second message was from Bill. “Call me when you get in.”

  I looked at my watch. It was after eleven. Maybe he wanted to take me to lunch.

  “We have an appointment,” he said when I reached him.

  “An interview? There’s no one left to interrogate.”

  “This is pleasure, not business.”

  The sound of his voice, rich and deep, eased my nerves and lessened the itching from my hives, stirred up by my near-visit with Mother.

  “What kind of appointment? Reservations for lunch?” I could always hope.

  “I’ll take you to lunch after. Maybe we’ll have something to celebrate.”

  “After what?”

  “It’s a surprise. There’s walking involved. Wear comfortable shoes.”

  “I don’t own any
other kind.” Except the heels I’d worn to the funeral and one pair of torturous stilettos that Caroline had made me buy last year for a Christmas tea. I would have donated the latter to Goodwill but feared ruining the feet of someone who couldn’t afford a podiatrist, so they remained hidden in the back of my closet.

  “I’ll pick you up at one. Love you.” And with a loud kissy sound, Bill hung up.

  Bill arrived promptly at one, and I climbed into his SUV with trepidation. The last time he’d surprised me, he’d harnessed a flock of eight prancing plywood flamingos to his cabin cruiser for the Christmas boat parade. I was reluctant to imagine what he had planned for this afternoon.

  After kissing me with his usual enthusiasm, he put the car in gear and pressed the gas. Within minutes, he was turning into Adler’s neighborhood.

  “Are we visiting Dave and Sharon?” I asked.

  Bill shook his head. “We’re meeting Natalie Pettigrew.”

  “Who’s she?”

  He grinned and patted my hand. “You’ll see.”

  He went past the Adler house, turned a corner and drove two more blocks before pulling to the curb and turning off the engine.

  “We’re here,” he announced.

  I looked around at the attractive homes, grassy lawns, and huge shade trees that sheltered the street from the blazing April sun.

  “The question,” I said, “is why?”

  He pointed to the house directly across from the SUV. “We’re house-hunting.”

  Only then did I notice the Realtor’s sign in the front yard that prominently displayed Natalie Pettigrew’s name, face and phone number.

  A plethora of emotions hit me, including surprise, curiosity and an overwhelming urge to jump from the car and run.

  Bill grabbed my hand. “Relax. We’re only looking. And that doesn’t obligate us. If it helps, just think of the house as a crime scene and see what it tells you.”

  “A crime scene? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  His laugh and the twinkle in his blue eyes assured me he was.

  The house, a Cape Cod with high gables and a steeply pitched roof, had been built in the forties. With its sage clapboard siding, roof of flat white tiles, and white shutters at the windows, the place needed only a white picket fence to match a Leave It to Beaver set.

  “What do you think?” Bill asked.

  “If you expect me to live in this June Cleaver environment, I’ll need pearls and an apron.”

  His smile faded, and I immediately regretted bursting his bubble.

  “It’s lovely,” I hastened to add. “It has home written all over it.”

  Bill’s good humor returned. “You said a few days ago that you wouldn’t mind looking at houses in this neighborhood, remember?”

  But I hadn’t expected Bill to start our house search so soon. Status quo was my natural condition, and the prospect of moving from my familiar condo filled me with anxiety. For Bill’s sake, however, I’d keep my reservations to myself.

  A dark blue BMW parked behind us. A young woman with bouffant strawberry-blond hair got out and approached the SUV. She was wearing a navy sleeveless dress, matching high heels and a beauty-contestant smile, and carrying an attaché case.

  “That must be Natalie.” Bill opened his door. “Now we can see inside.”

  His excitement was infectious. I left the car and, after meeting Natalie, accompanied Bill up the front walk. Tall crepe myrtle trees on either side of the entrance were just leafing out, and beds of flowering perennials and Indian hawthorn surrounded the house’s foundation.

  Before going inside, I glanced at the nearby houses. All were well maintained with attractive yards. And the street was tranquil and deserted, even on a Sunday afternoon.

  Natalie fiddled with the lockbox on the paneled burgundy-red front door, then opened it with a flourish. “Y’all just go on in, make yourselves at home, and take a look. You’ll find everything remodeled and updated. The house is empty, so y’all won’t disturb anyone.”

  Judging by the slow cadence of her speech, Natalie was definitely from somewhere in the Deep South. Folks like me, who’d grown up in Pelican Bay, had a polyglot accent, a mixture of Midwest and New England with a liberal dose of Southernisms, a linguistic gumbo.

  But thoughts of dialects disappeared when I stepped into the bare but sunny living room. Four tall sash windows flooded the spacious room and high ceiling with light that shimmered on the polished heart pine floors. Built-in bookcases, perfect for all the books I hadn’t had time to read, filled one wall, and a fireplace with an oak mantel another.

  “This house is deceiving,” Natalie said. “It looks small from the street. Follow me.”

  In the adjoining dining room, we saw what she meant. The house was built in a U-formation with French doors that opened from all the rooms onto a shaded courtyard, where a brick patio surrounded a weeping Chinese elm. Beds filled with pink and green caladiums, white pentas, Indian hawthorn, and nandina edged the brick seating area, and a fence across the back of the courtyard created a private, tranquil oasis. Not a water view like my condo had, but impressive.

  “Wow!”

  I followed the sound of Bill’s voice and found him in the kitchen. His expression was the same he’d worn when he first laid eyes on the Ten-Ninety-Eight. Bill had fallen in love.

  “Look at this place.” Awe tinged his voice. “Stainless-steel appliances, maple Shaker cabinets, slate floors, miles of granite countertops, a breakfast nook with built-in banquettes, and all with a view of that fabulous courtyard through a wall of French doors.”

  “It’s definitely bigger than your galley,” I said.

  “With a kitchen like this, I might never eat out again.”

  I looked around for Natalie, but she had disappeared into another part of the house, apparently to give us privacy to explore on our own.

  “We haven’t seen the bedrooms and baths,” I said. “Don’t make your mind up yet.”

  With reluctance, Bill left the kitchen, and we continued the tour. The front bedroom was small, but perfect for an office, and there was a tiny but updated full bath off the hall. The master suite, however, was huge, with a big bedroom, a sitting room, two walk-in closets, and the biggest bathroom I’d ever seen. We could have square-danced in the immense shower that had a high window that filled the tiled space with light.

  “The whole house is perfect,” Bill said. “See—” he’d opened a double-door closet in the master bath “—there’s even a laundry area.”

  Natalie had caught up with us. “And it also has a double lot and a detached two-car garage. And a huge backyard beyond the courtyard with room for a pool and a vegetable garden.”

  Bill was looking more smitten by the minute. Natalie must have noticed, because she abandoned her sales pitch and disappeared again. She didn’t need to be there. The house was selling itself.

  Excited as a kid at a carnival, Bill tugged me back to the kitchen, out the back door, across the brick patio and through the gate in the courtyard fence. Natalie hadn’t exaggerated about the backyard. There was a sunny expanse of Saint Augustine grass as well as areas shaded by live oaks and banked with azaleas. And several citrus trees loaded with fragrant blossoms grew near the garage. A ten-foot flowering viburnum hedge filled the air with fragrance and encompassed the property, providing quiet, privacy and a perch for a mockingbird that was singing his heart out, the only sound besides the rustle of a breeze.

  After exploring every corner of the yard and the garage, Bill returned to where I’d found a seat on a stone retaining wall.

  “Well,” he said, “what do you think?”

  “It’s the first house we’ve looked at.”

  “But do you like it?”

  I was suffering from a strange ambivalence. Part of me wanted to move in today, but another part, the commitment-scares-the-crap-out-of-me half, was terrified. I deflected his question with another. “What do you think?”

  “The house and yard are filled wi
th light, and—this might sound crazy, but—it’s got good vibes, as if the people who’ve lived here have been happy.” He glanced around, taking in everything. “It feels like home. A home I want to share with you, Margaret. But only if you like it, too,” he added hastily.

  I envied Bill. He wasn’t an impulsive kind of guy. Most of his decisions were made slowly and methodically. But he also had the capacity to make instantaneous choices in the blink of an eye, instinctively acting in a manner that time proved to be correct. He wanted this house. He could already see himself—us—living here. I’d bet he was even arranging furniture in his head.

  I, on the other hand, was the type who would dilly-dally for weeks, look at dozens of houses, and still be no more certain that I was doing the right thing when I finally made a choice.

  “Well, what did y’all decide?” Natalie had tracked us down in the backyard.

  Bill looked at me, hope shining in his baby blues. I looked at Natalie.

  “We don’t even know what it costs,” I said.

  She quoted the listing price, and I was glad I was sitting down.

  “That much?” I gasped.

  “Home prices have increased seventy percent since 1999,” she said. “And here along the coast, they’re only going to go higher. The sooner you buy, the more money you’ll save.”

  “I can afford it,” Bill assured me. “The important thing is whether you like it.”

  Bill wasn’t blowing hot air. He’d worked his entire life earning only a cop’s salary, but he would inherit thousands of acres of citrus groves near Plant City when his father, in his late eighties and the final stages of Alzheimer’s, died. The Malcolm land was already worth millions and increasing in value every day.

  Which put the ball in my court. The house was perfect, we could afford it, and Bill was obviously crazy about it. I swallowed my fears and misgivings. If this house would make Bill happy, that alone was reason enough to take the plunge. The fact that I liked it, too, was the clincher. “Let’s make an offer.”

  “Woo-hoo!” Bill swung me off my feet and twirled me around the yard.