it.”
“Well, honey, she was right,” Carey said. “We were.”
“She didn’t have to be so mean about it,” Linda insisted.
“She was a little shirty,” Carey said confidentially to me. “I mean, I know I was at fault, but she really went off the deep end.”
“Oh dear,” I murmured.
“I’m surprised Linda remembers any of this because it was a long time ago. Years, I guess.”
“So did Jane end up calling the animal control people?”
“No, no. Poor Burger got hit by a car over on Faith, right here to the side of the house, very soon after that. So now we have Waldo here”-and the tip of her slipper poked the dachshund affectionately-“and we walk him three or four times a day. It’s not much of a life for him, but it’s the best we can do.”
Waldo snored contentedly.
“Speaking of Madeleine, she came home,” I told Carey.
“She did! I thought Parnell and Leah picked her up from the vet’s where she’d been boarded while Jane was sick?”
“Well, they did, but Madeleine wanted to be at her own house. As it turns out, she was expecting.”
Linda and Carey both exclaimed over that, and I regretted telling them after a moment, because of course Linda wanted to see the little kitties and her mother did not want the child to cough and weep all afternoon.
“I’m sorry, Carey,” I said as I took my leave.
“Don’t worry about it,” Carey insisted, though I am sure she wished I had kept my mouth shut. “It’s just one of those things Linda has to learn to live with. I sure hope someday I can afford to fence the backyard, I’ll get her a Scottie puppie, I swear I will. A friend of mine raises them, and those are the cutest puppies in the world. Like little walking shoe brushes.”
I considered the cute factor of walking shoe brushes as I went through Carey’s backyard to my own. Carey’s yard was so open to view it was hard to imagine where a body could have been buried on her property, but I couldn’t exclude Carey either; her yard might not have been so bare a few years before.
I could be rid of all this by getting in my car and driving to the police station, I reminded myself. And for a moment I was powerfully tempted.
And I’ll tell you what stopped me: not loyalty to Jane, not keeping faith with the dead; nothing so noble. It was my fear of Sergeant Jack Burns, the terrifying head of the detectives. The sergeant, I had observed in my previous contacts with him, burned for truth the way other men burn for a promotion or a night with Michelle Pfeiffer.
He wouldn’t be happy with me.
He would want to nail me to the wall.
I would keep the skull a secret a little longer.
Maybe somehow I could wriggle out of this with a clear conscience. That didn’t seem possible at this moment, but then it hadn’t seemed possible someone would die and leave me a fortune, either.
I went in to check on Madeleine. She was nursing her kittens and looking smug and tired at the same time. I refilled her water bowl. I started to move her litter box into the room with her, but then I reconsidered. Best to leave it in the place she was used to going.
“Just think,” I told the cat, “a week ago, I had no idea that soon I’d have a cat, four kittens, a house, five hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and a skull. I didn’t know what I was missing.”
The doorbell rang.
I jumped maybe a mile. Thanks to Jane’s cryptic note, I now knew I had something to fear.
“Be back in a minute, Madeleine,” I said, to reassure myself rather than the cat.
This time, instead of opening the door, I looked through Jane’s spyhole. When I saw lots of black, I knew my caller was Aubrey. I was smiling as I opened the door.
“Come in.”
“I just thought I’d drop by and see the new house,” he said hesitantly. “Is that okay?”
“Sure. I just found out today I have kittens, come see them.”
And I led Aubrey into the bedroom, telling him Madeleine’s saga as we went.
The proximity of the bed startled him a little, but the kittens entranced him.
“Want one?” I asked. “It occurs to me I’ll have to find homes for alt of them in a few weeks. I’ll have to call a vet and find out when they can be separated from her. And when I can have her neutered.”
“You’re not going to take her back to Jane’s cousin?” Aubrey asked, looking a little amused.
“No,” I said without even thinking about it. “I’ll see how I like living with a pet. She seems pretty attached to this house.”
“Maybe I will take one,” Aubrey said thoughtfully. “My little house can get lonely. Having a cat to come home to might be pretty nice. I do get asked out a lot. That’s where I’ve been since church, as a matter of fact; a family in the church asked me to their home for lunch.”
“I bet it wasn’t as good as my lunch.” I told him about Sally’s roast beef, and he said he’d had turkey, and we ended up sitting by the kittens talking about food for a while. He didn’t cook for himself much, either.
And the doorbell rang.
We had been getting along so cozily, I had to resist an impulse to say something very nasty.
I left him in the bedroom staring at the kittens, all asleep and tiny, while I scrambled into the living room and opened the door.
Marcia Rideout, wide awake and gorgeous in white cotton shorts and a bright red camp shirt, smiled back at me. She certainly wasn’t drunk now; she was alert and cheerful.
“Good to see you again,” she said with a smile.
I marveled again at her perfect grooming. Her lipstick was almost professionally applied, her eye shadow subtle but noticeable, her hair evenly golden and smoothly combed into a page boy. Her legs were hairless and beautifully brown. Even her white tennis shoes were spotless.
“Hi, Marcia,” I said quickly, having become aware I was staring at her like a guppy.
“I’ll just take a minute of your time,” she promised. She handed me a little envelope. “Torrance and I just want to give a little party on our sun deck this Wednesday to welcome you into the neighborhood.”
“Oh, but I-” I began to protest.
“No no, now. We wanted to have a little cook-out anyway, but your inheriting the house just makes a good excuse. And we have new neighbors across the street, too, they’re going to come. We’ll all get to know each other. I know this is short notice, but Torrance has to travel this Friday and won’t be back until late on Saturday.” Marcia seemed like a different person from the indolent drunk I’d met a few days before. The prospect of entertaining seemed to bring her to life.
How could I refuse? The idea of being honored at the same party with Lynn and Arthur was less than thrilling, but refusal would be unthinkable, too.
“Do bring a date if you want, or just come on your own,” Marcia said.
“You really won’t mind if I bring someone?”
“Please do! One more won’t make a bit of difference. Got anyone in mind?” Marcia asked, her brows arched coyly.
“Yes,” I said with a smile, and said no more. I was just hoping with all my might that Aubrey would not choose this moment to emerge from the bedroom. I could picture Marcia’s eyebrows flying clean off her face.
“Oh,” Marcia said, obviously a little taken aback by my marked lack of explanation. “Yes, that’ll be fine. Just come as you are, we won’t be fancy, that’s not Torrance and me!”
Marcia seemed very fancy indeed to me.
“Can I bring anything?”
“Just yourself,” Marcia responded, as I’d expected. I realized that the party preparations would keep her excited and happy for the next three days.
“I’ll see you then,” she called as she bounced down the steps and started back over to her house.
I took the little invitation with me when I went back to Aubrey.
“Could you go to this with me?” I asked, handing it to him. I thought if he turned me down I was going to be horribly embarrassed, but I had no one else to ask, and if I was going to a party with Arthur and Lynn present, I was damn sure going to have a date.
