Family Jewels (Dix Dodd Mystery #2)

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 derriere.

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