part0006

“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” Wilson said the minute we arrived home.

“Whatever do you mean?” I asked.

He closed the door and pointed to the floor and the apartment below. “You know exactly what I mean. I lost track of how many times you stared at Candy’s ring finger and told Carter you do not like surprises. Real subtle, Jessie.”

“This was no time for subtlety. This.” I, too, pointed downward. “Is an emergency.”

“This is ridiculous.” He shook his head. “This isn’t one of Adelé Nightingale’s fairy tales. The real Jessie Hewitt doesn’t get to choose who everyone and his brother ends up with.”

“Whom,” I corrected. “And it’s not everyone I’m concerned about. It’s Candy.”

He rolled his eyes. “Stop meddling.”

“Great! So if they actually do get engaged, I should just accept it?”

I folded my arms and glared, and he glanced across the expansive room to the couch, where all three cats were resting. “Help me out,” he said, and of course Snowflake did just that. Our solid white cat was mine before the marriage, but she has no sense of loyalty. She looked up and offered a loud meow, which clearly spelled out, “Stop meddling.”

Wilson elaborated. “Snowflake’s telling you to remember when we were dating,” he said. “You didn’t like it when Candy nosed into our affairs.”

“That was different,” I insisted. “Twenty-nine-year-old Candy had no business telling fifty-two-year-old me how to conduct my love life.”

“You got to admit, she was pretty wise about us, Jessie.”

Well, yes. Ignore her miniskirts and sequined stilettos, and Candy Poppe is a very wise woman.

Nevertheless, I appealed to Wally for support. Bless his heart, our solid black cat always takes my side in any argument, and sure enough, he hopped off the couch to swat a jingle-bell ball at my feet.

“See?” I tossed the ball. “The cats agree with me. Candy needs my meddling.”

Wilson pointed to Bernice. Our fatter than fat calico hadn’t even bothered to rouse herself, and continued sleeping soundly. “Bernice has the right idea,” he said. “Relax and stay out of it.” He stepped over to give his beloved old calico a nice smooth pat before moving toward the stove to put on the tea kettle.

I took a seat at the counter. “I can’t believe I have to tell Captain Wilson Rye the homicide guy to disapprove,” I said. “You know Carter’s a bad influence on her. You know the trouble they got into.”

“Ancient history.”

Not that ancient. Candy and Carter had been partners in crime back in their high school days. In fact, they got into so much trouble that a juvenile court judge had ordered them not to see each other for ten years. One assumes the judge hoped they’d behave themselves if separated.

And it worked, at least for Candy. She took a job at Tate’s Department Store after graduation, and had since become the best bra saleswoman the store has ever seen. Meanwhile, Carter went off to college and somehow managed to earn a PhD in chemistry. But after the mandated decade had elapsed, he came back to Clarence to re-unite with his old girlfriend.

“Much to everyone’s chagrin,” I said.

“Not to hers.” Wilson poured the tea and pushed a cup toward me. “Shouldn’t Adelé Nightingale approve of that kind of devotion?”

Oh, please. I reminded the man of the duo’s more recent run-in with the law. “You yourself arrested them, Wilson. For murder, of all things!”

“And you yourself know they were innocent, and they helped me catch the real killer.”

I snarled. “I still don’t trust him.”

Wilson reached out and took my hands in his. “Is that really what your intuition’s telling you, Jessie? You’re usually such a good judge of character. ”

Excuse me? Was my husband the cop actually complementing my intuition? I asked if he were feeling well.

“Never better. Your intuition?”

Had been altogether silent on the subject of Carter O’Connell. “Which is why I need Karen,” I said. “Karen’s always so logical.”

“Which is why she’d defend Carter.” Wilson abandoned me for the cats and tossed the jingle-bell ball past the couch and toward my desk. “At least you like Karen’s boyfriend,” he said.

Oh my, yes. I was wholeheartedly agreeing with that particular and delightful point, when our landline rang.

“Hello, Jessie?” a male voice asked.

I glanced up and smiled. Speak of the devil. Or rather, speak of the billionaire.

“Pierpont!” I exclaimed. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“I’m sorry to call so late,” he said. “But have you seen Karen?”

“She’s with you, no?”

“No. She was here, but now she isn’t. Here, that is. Is she there? With you?”

“It’s after midnight, Piers.”

He sighed. “I’m not making any sense, am I? I don’t mean there, in your condo, but there on Sullivan Street. Is she downstairs in her condo?”

I scowled. “Should I check?” I asked. “Is Karen okay?”

Wilson stopped the ball game and glanced up.

“I seem to have misplaced her,” Piers was saying.

I put my hand over the receiver. “Pierpont has misplaced Karen.”

“What do you mean misplaced?” Wilson asked.

I returned to the phone. “What do you mean misplaced?”

“How do you misplace a person?” Wilson asked as I urged him to drive faster.

“I guess it’s possible,” I said. “It’s a big house.”

“Try humongous.”

Indeed. Pierpont Rigby, if you happen to live under a rock, is the richest man in Clarence, the richest man in North Carolina, and is also one of the wealthiest people in the nation, and the world. And as Wilson so aptly phrased it, his house is humongous.

Humongous with humongous upkeep issues. Enter my good friend Karen Sembler—an exceedingly handy handywoman who can build or fix anything. Karen had begun working at the Rigby mansion the previous autumn, and here it was May, and she was still there. Evidently everything in the place—plumbing, electrical, roofing, et cetera—needed fixing, remodeling, or replacing.

“Piers told me she’s been working on the plumbing in the west wing for over a month,” I said, and Wilson asked how many bathrooms we were talking about.

“In the west wing?” I shrugged. “At least a dozen, I imagine. That’s how she got lost.”

He shook his head. “Say what?”

I suggested we ask Piers for further details, but I assume you’re more curious about the other details—namely, the romance details. Not only is Pierpont Rigby rich, he also has taste. Karen had barely begun to take stock of all her projects at his house, before the billionaire asked her out and jetted her off to Manhattan for a night on the town. And lo and behold, they’d been involved ever since!

A billionaire falling for his handywoman? If this tale had taken place in the fifteenth or sixteenth century, Adelé Nightingale would be all over it.

I gazed out the window into the darkness. We had long ago left downtown Clarence and were driving over hill and dale. “I’m glad we decided to take my car,” I said, and Wilson agreed that my gold Porsche Carrera was far more suited to a midnight drive to the Rigby Estate than his ugly old pick-up truck.

“Why can’t Candy find a beau like Karen’s?” I asked .

“I keep telling you, Jessie. Billionaires don’t grow on trees.”

We took the turn onto Rigby Boulevard, and after driving several more miles, stopped at the gate. Wilson pointed to the intercom. “I thought Piers stationed a guard out here.”

I shrugged and said he must employ a guard only during the week every fall when he opens his house to the public. “Under normal circumstances, I suppose it’s just the intercom,” I said.

Wilson shot me a glance. “If Karen’s missing, these aren’t normal circumstances.”