“Maybe Yuri was here when I called to tell Ivy about what was going on with Harold. Maybe she told him what was going on, and he decided to do something about it.”
“What exactly did you tell Ivy?”
Burton shrugged. “That Uncle Harold had decided to settle Holly’s lawsuit out of court. He told me that morning that he was going to give Holly everything she wanted. I was worried Ivy would be left out in the cold, with very little to show for all her hard work and with no one to take care of her. It makes perfect sense now. That gold- digging bastard was worried about the same thing, so he killed Uncle Harold before he had a chance to change the provisions of his will.”
“No way,” Marianne objected. “I’m sure you’ve got it all wrong. These are two fine, upstanding, honorable people.”
But Burton Kimball was on a roll. “Oh, yeah?” he snarled back at her. “What do you know about him, really? About where he comes from, about what kind of background he has? If you ask me, he’s nothing but a glorified wetback. Everybody knows getting married is a surefire way of turning a green card into U.S. citizenship. With what she was due to receive from Uncle Harold, Ivy must have looked like a sure thing.”
By then, Marianne Macula was as outraged as Burton was. “I’m telling you you’re wrong about Yuri, Mr. Kimball,” she insisted. “I will personally vouch for him. He’s a fine man who will make Ivy Patterson very happy.”
“Like hell he will!” Harold returned. “You god damned preachers are all alike. Little Miss Goody Two-shoes. You ought to come down off your high horse and your pulpit and grub around in the real world for a while. Come on up to the courthouse someday and just hang around, Reverend Macula. Maybe you can afford the luxury of taking everyone at face value, but the rest of the world can’t. I can’t. And I’m going to do my best to talk Ivy out of marrying him until we can find out more about him.”
With that, Burton Kimball stormed out of the house. Left alone in someone else’s living room, Joanna Brady and Marianne Macula stared at one another in subdued silence.
“I guess I’d better go,” Marianne said. “If Jeff and I are having a wedding at the parsonage tonight, he may need help getting the place ready. It’s a good thing I vacuumed before you conked me on the head.”
Joanna ignored Marianne’s small attempt at humor, “Doesn’t it seem odd to you?” Joanna asked.
“For Ivy to be getting married like that, in such a rush?”
Marianne stopped to consider the question. “Actually, the older I get, more and more strange stuff is starting to seem normal.”
“Is that because the world is getting weird, or because we are?”
“Maybe both,” Marianne replied. “Most likely both.”
They stepped outside onto the porch in time to witness the end of a fierce shouting match between Burton Kimball and Ivy Patterson.
Finally, Burton slammed himself into his Jeep Cherokee and raced out of the yard, sending Ivy Patterson’s normally placid flock of chickens and peacocks scattering in all directions.
“It looks to me,” Marianne observed, “that the voice of sweet reason didn’t prevail, and the Wedding March marches on.”
Joanna shook her head. “Maybe the whole gang has flipped out. Actually, speaking of that, do you know if anyone’s called Holly to tell her what’s happened? She’s also Harold’s daughter, you know. She has as much right to be notified as any one else.”
“I don’t remember anyone mentioning it to me,” Marianne returned.
Joanna shook her head. “Then maybe I’d better take a crack at that one, too. Better me than Marliss Shackleford.”
“By all means,” Marianne agreed, “but you’d best get a move on. If I know Marliss, she won’t miss a trick. In fact, she may already be there by now.”
As Joanna drove toward Cosa Viejo, she was once more conscious of her hopelessly ill-fitting clothing. What worked for a crime scene wasn’t appropriate for paying an official call. Her mother would have had a fit to think her daughter would show up at a place like Cosa Viejo dressed as she was.
of all the houses in town, the venerable old mansion at the top of Vista Park was by far the most ostentatious. Two stories tall and massively built, the place was constructed out of thick brown stucco and accented by decorative strips of hand carved wood moldings. The yard was surrounded by a low-slung stucco wall backed up by an interior barrier of fifteen-foot-high oleanders, giving the place an impenetrable, secretive look.
Definitely out of my league, Joanna thought, driving up to the gate in her Eagle.
It hadn’t always been that way. For instance, during the time Cosa Viejo was carved up into apartments, Joanna’s favorite high school phys-ed teacher had lived there. In fact, her sophomore year, she had even attended a tennis-club barbecue that had been held on the wide veranda overlooking Vista Park.
But that was long before Cosa Viejo had been made over once again. According to Eleanor Lathrop, very few locals, even upscale neighbors from the immediate area, had been invited inside the refurbished place since its purchase by either the former owners-purported drug dealers - or this new one, who was supposedly someone important out in Hollywood. That stray thought caused Joanna to smile. By her mother’s lights, everyone in Hollywood - no matter how obscure - was important.
Joanna pushed the bell fastened on the gatepost.
“Who is it?” a disembodied voice asked.
“Joanna Brady,” she answered. “Sheriff Joanna Brady to see Holly Patterson.”
For an answer, the wrought-iron gate swung smoothly open, and Joanna drove in. Toward the back of the building was a garage where two open doors revealed both the fender-damaged red Cadillac and a stretch limo. The thought crossed Joanna’s mind that at least one Patterson girl seemed to have done all right for herself. A red Cadillac was a long way from Ivy’s battered Chevy truck. Several parking places had been marked on the pavement
