ten

Thirty minutes later, Red and I pushed a cart through the Aisle Liquor Store. The name was a pun—I’ll Lick Her. It had opened three years ago after church ladies and old-timers had finally lost the battle to keep Bonaventure County dry and pious.

I bent over a wooden rack to study merlot bottles, and a warm hand caught my elbow. I spun around and looked up into Mary Queen Lancaster’s wrinkled face. She’d been one of Aunt Bluette’s friends, a square, solid woman, with sharp blue eyes that took in everything. If you wanted to hear the latest gossip, ask Mary Queen. She owned a landscape company on Savannah Highway, but when she wasn’t delivering mulch, she read tea leaves. The sign in front of her house read, A DIRTY BUSINESS.

She patted her grizzled hair, and I saw a cast on her wrist. “Carpal tunnel syndrome,” she said, smiling at Red. “Is he one of your new boyfriends?”

I shook my head. “A friend.”

“That’s not the impression I got from Emerson Philpot. I gave her a ride to your farm yesterday.”

“Teeny’s just a pal,” Red told her.

“Does that mean you’re available? ’Cause I like younger men. But I don’t like young women who make fools of themselves.” Mary Queen shot me a glance. “I don’t mean to meddle, but since Bluette ain’t here to set you straight, I will.”

“About what?” I folded my arms, bracing myself for a lecture.

“Emerson’s a cutie. But I’m praying that she isn’t Coop O’Malley’s child. If she is, you better watch out for them Philpots.” Mary Queen picked up a bottle of Wild Turkey, glanced at the label, and cut her gaze to me. “Norris used to be my eye doctor. Thanks to him, I’ve got new corneas. Of course, that was before he got into all that trouble.”

“What did he do?” I asked.

“A patient accused Norris of rape. It happened right after you moved to Charleston. The Philpots kept it out of the newspaper, but I’ve got my ways of hearing things.” She set the Wild Turkey bottle in her cart.

“Who did he attack?” Red asked.

“A pretty waitress from the Sweet Pea Café. It was a he-said-she-said situation.” Mary Queen sighed. “There wasn’t enough evidence to charge Norris, but I’m quite sure he raped her. Before it happened, I read her tea leaves. I saw a skinny line in the bottom of her cup, like angel hair pasta, but now I’m thinking it was a penis.”

Red didn’t comment, but his eyes said, She’s a Loon.

“I’m not trying to be cute,” Mary Queen said. “Any man who rapes ought to lose his penis. I wish I’d warned the girl.”

“So how did Norris lose his license?” Red asked.

“The waitress reported Norris to the state medical board. Apparently it wasn’t the first time. They jerked away his license. Ordered him to attend a sex school in Arizona.”

“Did he go?” I asked.

“Not yet. He’s working at the drugstore, hounding the female customers.” Mary Queen set a Beefeater gin bottle into my cart. “You’ll be needing this, Teeny.”

*   *   *

Coop was in bed when Red and I got home. I tiptoed across the room and sat on the edge of the mattress. I watched him sleep, and my heart slipped out of rhythm for a second, beating a wild bongo beat. We’d always had good rhythm and bad timing.

He stirred. “Teeny?”

I smoothed back his hair. “I’m glad you’re awake. I ran into one of my neighbors at the liquor store. She told me why Norris isn’t practicing medicine. He raped a woman.”

“Alleged rape,” Coop said.

“You know about it?”

“My dad mentioned it a while ago.” His hand drifted over my hair. “I don’t want you to worry. I want you to think about my proposal.”

“I am.”

“Have you ever loved someone so much that it hurts?” he asked. “That’s how I feel about you, Teeny.”

“You’ve loved before,” I whispered.

He put his hands on my face. “Not this way. Not ever this way.”

His words sent a reckless desire streaking through my head. For the first time that evening, I took a deep, calming breath that actually left me feeling more relaxed. I kissed him over and over, weaving my hands through his hair, and then we were under the covers and nothing was between us. His chest was pressed against mine, our hearts whooshing, as if a thousand doors and windows had flung wide open.

*   *   *

The next morning, I sat in the window seat and thumbed through my vocabulary book. I picked out jejune, which means “sophomoric and silly.” I turned to the Cs and put my finger on a random word. Certitude. “Certainty, sureness, assurance.”

A car roared down the driveway. Kendall’s Mazda shot around the curve and parked beside the yellow van. She got out of her car and straightened her dress, a black, cobwebby A-line. She dragged three shopping bags out of the backseat and dumped them on my front porch.

“I’ve been shopping my fool head off,” she said. “There’s a sale every Tuesday at Miss Pitty’s Boutique, so I went hog wild. But the clerks were so rude. They acted like Lester had sent a dingo to dress his baby. You know what I’m referencing? That movie set in Australia with Meryl Streep? And a—”

“Dingo ate her baby,” I finished.

“Exactly!” She reached into the largest bag and pulled out an ebony rayon dress. It was long-sleeved, with built-in gloves.

“Isn’t this the darlingest thing you ever saw?” she asked.

“Hmm,” I said. A spider could wear this to a tarantula’s funeral. A jejunish spider. I opened another bag and lifted a black dress. It looked too fussy for Emerson.

“Taffeta,” Kendall said. “It’s got pizzazz, don’t it?”

I searched the other bags, but all I found were patent leather shoes, lacy socks, and hair bows. I was so disappointed, but at least this dress didn’t have gloves.

After Kendall left, I dragged the bags into the kitchen. Coop stood by the sink, washing a frying pan. Steaming platters of link sausages and scrambled eggs sat on the table. I was impressed that he’d cooked.

He flicked a tea towel at my rear end. “Let’s go back to bed,” he whispered.

It was tempting, but I’d already smelled food. “There’s a time for everything, O’Malley,” I said. “A time to make love and a time to eat pancakes. Besides, Emerson and Red are upstairs.”

Coop lifted a wicker basket and steered me out the back door. The dogs loped ahead of us, streaking across the grass. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“It’s a time for peaches.”

I couldn’t resist the orchard, so I let him pull me along. Morning sun blazed through the leaves, and the air smelled like burned sugar. The branches webbed above us, forming lacy, green nets.

Coop stopped between two Elberta trees. “Tell me about the peaches,” he said.

The names slipped off my tongue like sweet talk. “The trees by the creek are Sunbrites and Shepard’s Beauty.” I moved in a circle, pointing. “Elbertas, Galas, Summerladies.”

“I remember coming here with my dad,” Coop said. “The rows were filled with ladders. The pickers were singing ‘Abide with Me.’ And you were up in a tree, singing with them.”

I briefly shut my eyes. I remembered how the air had strummed with bees and hymns. Abide with me through clouds and sunshine, Lord, abide with me. Coop squeezed my arm. “It’s so good to see you smile,” he said.

I reached up into a branch and tugged at a ripe Elberta. It snapped free. I held it in front of Coop’s mouth. His teeth sank down and juice trickled over his lips. A golden drop held on his chin and shimmered.

“It’s so sweet,” he said, pushing the fruit toward me. I wrapped my hand around his hand and guided the peach back to his mouth. Keeping his eyes on me, he bit deeper. I touched his throat at the exact moment he swallowed.

“Your turn,” he said, and put the peach into my cupped palms. The wind rushed through the rows, and I could have sworn it carried a voice.

Trouble’s coming.

My hands sprang apart as if I’d released a bee, and the peach thumped to the ground. I’d never been able to see the future like Tallulah, nor could I read tea leaves like Mary Queen. My bad feelings never had the decency to tell me what might happen. But I just knew trouble was coming.

*   *   *

Since this was our last day with Emerson, I let her pick what she wanted to do. I’d expected her to ask for a satellite TV dish or a Happy Meal. But she said, “Take me to Pinocchio’s Toy Mart.”

Ten minutes later, I stood with Coop and Red in the middle of the stuffed animal section. Emerson ran down the aisle, her face incandescent. She zoomed past the Barbies and stopped in front of a row that was crammed with riddle books and jigsaw puzzles. She grabbed a copy of The Cipher Book and walked to a display table where a Noah’s Ark puzzle lay under glass.

“I thought she’d go straight for the dolls,” Red said.

“Her mother was into code breaking and anagrams,” I said.

He lifted a stuffed rat. “So it’s a hereditary thing?”

“A learned thing,” I said.

Coop picked up a stuffed gopher and it gave a little squeak. “Barb used to write me encrypted letters.”

My lips slid into an “oh shit” smile. I remembered her diary and the horrid things she’d written. I also remembered the time she’d stolen pieces from her father’s Pacific Ocean puzzle. If Mr. Browning had suspected her of pilfering, he’d never said. Once, he’d glanced up at me, his blue eyes flat and empty. “You should join us, young lady. Puzzles train the mind to be Machiavellian.”

Barb had instilled the love of game playing in her daughter—not as a shared hobby, not to bond, but apparently to raise a cunning child.

Coop and Red helped Emerson carry her selections to the cash register. I made a loop through the store, searching for masks. Since it was August the Halloween merchandise hadn’t been set out, and I only found a carnival mask and a hard plastic one, the kind favored by actors in horror movies.

A clerk passed by, her arms loaded with American Girl dolls. I hurried after her. “Miss? Do you sell Bill Clinton masks?”

The clerk turned, and her thick eyeglasses slid down her nose. “No, sorry. But Philpot’s Pharmacy stocked them last Halloween.”

I could hardly breathe as I walked to the checkout counter. Coop and Emerson watched the clerk slide the puzzle boxes into shopping bags. I pulled Red aside. His expression changed from boredom to skepticism as I told him about the mask.

“That proves nothing,” he said. “You’ve got to stop this, Teeny.”

“But when we were at Philpot’s Pharmacy, I saw Halloween stuff in the stockroom.”

“So? Did you check the shelves? Or do you have X-ray vision, girlie?”

“The stockroom door opened. I saw plastic pumpkins.”

“But no Bill Clinton mask, right?”

“Let’s go to the store. I’ll keep Norris busy and you can look through the stockroom.”

“Are you nuts? If Norris catches me, I could be arrested.”

“But if we find that mask, it could mean that Lester was at Barb’s house that night.”

“No, it won’t.” Red shook his finger in my face. “If you find that mask, you got nothing—except a lawsuit.”

“My gut tells me that Lester wanted her dead.”

“You’re gut is wrong, girlie.”

I folded my arms. One way or another, I’d find a way into Lester’s stockroom. The mask didn’t hold the answer, but it was a piece of the puzzle. The puzzle that lay behind Barb’s death.