Candy Apple Red (17 page)

“You know, at first, it was just about Laura. I never forgave him for taking her from me,” Murphy said, gulping the last of his wine.

Murphy and Laura had dated first, a high school thing, meaningless, frivolous, but oh, so important at the time. “Weren’t you and Laura way over when she hooked up with Bobby?”

“Yeah…I guess. There was a lot of time in between. But it didn’t feel that way sometimes, y’know?”

“That’s merely competition talking.”

He looked into the bottom of his now empty wine glass. “You’re right. It
was
over.”

There was a hint of something in his tone that suggested something else but my own wine consumption was leaving me a little off. “Over, but not
way
over?”

“She was a sweet girl. A woman worth falling in love with.”

I buried my nose in my glass. It wasn’t meant as an insult to me, but it felt like one anyway. I made a noise of agreement and viciously castigated myself for being jealous of a dead woman.

“I wasn’t in love with her. Not in the ‘let’s get married’ way. She was too religious. I couldn’t be that way with her or for her. I knew it. I spent most of my time trying to corrupt her, I guess.”

“But that was high school.”

“I didn’t want Bobby to have her.
That’s
high school. I didn’t want them to get married. I wanted them to break up. I tried to get them to break up.”

“That’s natural.”

“No, it’s not. You don’t know what I did.”

I heard some aggression in his tone. “What did you do?”

“I slept with her some more. A few times. I told Bobby. I made Laura cry.”

He looked away, ashamed. “They got married anyway. None of it should have happened.”

Seeing the path of his guilt sobered me up as if I’d been thrown into Lake Chinook. “Bobby did not kill his whole family because he was angry at Laura and you.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” I looked at him hard. “Murphy, Bobby was a hatchery fish. He was made that way. His choices were from a serious lack within himself. It didn’t have anything to do with you.”

“I wanted to make it up to them. When you and I were together, it was great. We could all hang out as friends.”

So, that’s what I’d been. The girlfriend to round out the foursome. The balance. Great.

“I loved being with you,” he said, grabbing my thoughts before they could follow the path they’d suddenly taken, turning them around. “I loved driving around.”

He’d owned a candy apple red Mustang convertible. Not quite vintage. Just old enough to be a tad uncool, just new enough to run. It had come in another shade of red that year, but he’d had it painted in a richer, deeper tone. I followed that car out of southern California. I’d driven around Lake Chinook, the wind tearing through my hair, my thoughts full of love and marriage and tin cans hanging from the Mustang’s back bumper as we drove off, into the sunset.

He stared at his empty glass. “Do you have any more wine? I want to get stinking drunk. So that when I wake up tomorrow, I feel like hell.”

“You came to the wrong place, I’m afraid.”

“Then, I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?” He’d risen from the couch with purpose and now I didn’t want him to go.

“To the store.”

“Are you okay to drive?”

“More than okay, unfortunately. I’ve had time to sober up. But I’ll make up for it. Mind if I sleep on your couch tonight?”

I shook my head.

He returned within half an hour with a half case of wine. I’m no expert on labels but I knew he wouldn’t pick the cheapest bottles on the shelf as I was wont to do. I tried to be a host by sharing some more, but honestly, I started feeling dizzy way too soon. I wanted to track his conversation and record these moments. I wanted to remember being with Murphy. I could recall being in that car and kissing in that car and yes, struggling to have sex in that car. And while Murphy drank and mumbled about how he’d betrayed Bobby and Bobby’d betrayed everyone and how he wished it was all the way it used to be and Laura and the kids and Bobby were all still alive, my mind’s eye was filled with an image of a bright red car and singing wind and joy.

I don’t remember stumbling into bed. I do remember not being able to stay up any longer. I wanted to kiss Murphy good-night but I knew it wouldn’t end there. I chose the safer path and merely up and left him on the sofa, crashing onto my bed, my head full of bright, past images and way too much wine.

I woke at four a.m., mouth dry, every cell screaming: WATER! I stumbled into the kitchen, taking a quick scan of the sofa and finding it empty.

“Shit,” I said through my teeth. I grabbed the pitcher of tap water in the refrigerator and thought about drinking out of the side. Good manners prevailed and I managed to pour myself a glass, drinking half down in thirsty, slurpy gulps before I realized my sliding glass door was slightly open.

A jolt swept through me, then a lightening of spirit. I stepped outside into a velvety warm night and found Murphy asleep on my plastic lounge chair. His head was thrown back, his mouth open. His last glass of wine sat beside him on the deck, looking untouched.

I had a chance to view him directly this way through the gray-black darkness. My kitchen light threw a yellow square of illumination across his chest and brought the features of his face into sharp relief. I wondered what I felt for him. Part of me wanted to dismiss him as the past, but isn’t there always some irrepressible need to woo the one who dumped you? To make them fall in love with you all over again? To be the one to realize that your feelings really aren’t all that deep and that it was over then, and it’s over now, and it will always be over? Don’t we
need
that?

Moonlight, caught behind clouds, slipped through and played on the smooth water of the bay. I inhaled and exhaled slowly. The trouble was I wanted to jump his bones. I could feel it as if it were a living thing, desperate to feed. Thank God I was still dying of thirst as it kept me from acting like a horny teenager and waking the man up with a kiss. It’s annoying to realize that even seeing him sleeping with his mouth open couldn’t turn me off. I found it endearing. Made him seem more human. More approachable. More winnable.

I returned to my water pitcher, gulped some more, and nearly tripped over Binks who’d toddled from her bed and stood blinking in the kitchen light.

“Back to bed,” I said softly, turning off the light. The dog complied, curling back into her bed and watching me slide between my sheets. I felt her gaze on me, so I leaned over the side of the bed, catching sight of her wide eyes in the ever so faint moonlight sneaking through my shuttered window.

“I didn’t kiss him,” I said, just to remind her.

I woke at the crack of dawn, scurried through the kitchen and found Murphy still sleeping on the deck lounge chair. Glancing around, I found my pound bag of hazelnut coffee I’d purchased at the Coffee Nook. Hallelujah! Sure, it was girly coffee. No man I know drinks it and expresses joy at the flavor. But it was coffee, for God’s sake. It counted.

Pulling out the coffeemaker, my eye fell on the waffle maker. For the briefest of moments I considered trying my hand at breakfast. I’d managed to make myself a passable waffle without benefit of an egg the other morning, now I could do the real deal. In the next second I mentally berated myself. Why was I trying so hard to impress him? We were through and it was okay.
But I can make waffles
, I argued with myself.
I can do that. That’s no big deal.

“Hey…”

I spilled grains of coffee across my countertop at the sound of Murphy’s voice. Slowly, thoughtfully, I picked them up with a sponge as Murphy entered the kitchen and closed the sliding door behind himself.

“I feel like hell.” He rubbed a hand over his face.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yeah…Could I have a glass of water?”

“Sure.” I poured him a glass from my refrigerated pitcher. He drank lustily and hormones began to sing through my veins again. I concentrated on the brown liquid pouring through the coffeepot’s filter into the glass receptacle.

“Cotton’s put me in his will as prime beneficiary,” he stated morosely.

The baldness of this brought me up short. “What about Bobby? I mean, his body was just discovered.”

“He had it already done. Didn’t matter if Bobby was alive or not.”

“Wow…” I let this process for a moment, then asked, “What about Heather?”

“I told Cotton to leave it all to her. Or Tess or Owen. Anyone but me. I don’t want it.”

“You talked this over with Cotton?”

“More like he talked to me. Heather’s got some idea about it, I think. She’s been friendly but tense. I’ve been staying at the island. I don’t want to, but Cotton’s been insistent and now…” Murphy sank onto a stool, looking upset. “I’ve gotta get outta here. I’ve got a ticket back to Santa Fe.” He threw me a glance. “Would you come with me?”

“Ha, ha,” I laughed, pretending he was joking when I wasn’t sure he was. It was a good thing I’d already rewrapped the hazelnut decaf package because I wouldn’t have trusted my hands not to spill the whole bag.

“I’m serious.”

“You want me to go with you to Santa Fe?”

He nodded.

“Just like that?”

“I can’t stay here, Jane.”

“Well, I can’t go,” I said simply.

“Why not?”

I couldn’t decide whether I was thrilled or angry. I had a life in Lake Chinook. Without him. Yet he acted as if I’d been just hanging around waiting for him. “You’re sure you’re the beneficiary?” I asked, sidestepping.

“Cotton met with his attorney, then he talked to me.”

Ah, yes. Jerome Neusmeyer.

“I think it would be better if you stayed here,” I said carefully. “You need to see this thing through no matter what happens.”

He silently stared at me, his chest rising and falling. He was definitely in some kind of emotional crisis. This, too, I found peculiarly attractive. Murphy was always in such fierce control of himself that this faint vulnerability was like an aphrodisiac for me. I liked thinking he might be a bit softer now, which was such a bunch of horseshit when you thought about it. What did I want from the man?
Nothing
, I reminded myself sternly.

“I quit my job in Santa Fe,” he said. “Worked freelance investigation for an insurance company there until a few months ago. But I could go back to it. I’ve got a house there. Small, but functional. I’ve been thinking about you a lot, and when I saw you at the island, I started thinking a lot of other thoughts.”

“Oh?” I poured us two mugs of coffee. Carefully.

“If the Bobby thing hadn’t happened…” He trailed off, then switched gears. “We were a good team, Jane. If you don’t like Santa Fe, we could go back to southern California.”

He was waiting for some kind of response. I set his mug down in front of him and cradled mine, distantly aware that I might be burning the pads off my fingers and palms. My hesitation grew into a lengthy pause. Murphy nodded as if I’d slapped him.

“You’re saying no,” he said to my continued silence.

“You tempt me,” I admitted.

“And?”

“But I can’t run away. I’ve got a job here.”

He didn’t believe me. “And what is that job, exactly? Process serving?”

“Among other things.”

He waited for me to elaborate, certain I had nothing left up my sleeve. I hesitated for only a minute, then said, “I’m doing some investigating.”

“Investigating?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Like private investigating? You mean as a job?”

“That’s what I said.”

He was perplexed. “You mean right now? Who are you investigating?” He drew a sharp breath as the full import dawned. “
Me?
”

“No!” I half-laughed.

“Cotton? You’re investigating Cotton?”

“I’m just looking into some things…”

“Don’t split hairs, Jane. Someone hired you to investigate Cotton? Why? You mean…because of Bobby? Well, who are you working for?” He paused, then came up with the only available answer. “Oh, God. Tess. It’s not Heather. She’s got too clear of an idea of the finances. It’s Tess.”

Bull’s-eye. I simply didn’t respond. Murphy sipped at his coffee, made a face, set the cup down and headed for the door. Binks awoke to say good-bye but Murphy was too pissed to do much more than leave. He hesitated at the door, then came back to where I was standing in the kitchen. He drew me to him and kissed the top of my head, then wordlessly exited.

Murphy’s good at leaving me.

C
otton called me within the hour to bawl me out. Murphy is nothing if not efficient and he tattle-taled about as fast as humanly possible. I let Cotton rant on for several long minutes because (a) I felt I deserved it, (b) he sounded so weak, even in his anger, that I seriously worried he might collapse if I put up even the slightest protest, and (c) he needed somewhere to direct his hurt, anger and grief and I was as good a target as anyone.

I said, when he finally ran down, his breath heavy and labored on the other end of the line, “Tess wanted to know where Bobby was. She felt you knew and she asked me to see what I could learn. I’m sorry for the subterfuge. She missed her son.”

“Well, she knew where he was!” Cotton growled, then he slammed down the receiver.

I wondered at that. Was he serious, or just furious and irrational? Tess didn’t know where Bobby was. That’s why she hired me in the first place, wasn’t it?

I called Tess and left another message for her. She didn’t return my call and by the afternoon, I wondered if she ever would. I was pleasantly surprised to find a check in my mailbox made out to yours truly for a thousand dollars. In a moment of giving, I sent her my neatly typed reports that said absolutely nothing she didn’t already know and dropped them in the mail.

I believed our business was finished, and I phoned Dwayne and made a point of letting him know I’d been paid. If I’d been in a better frame of mind, I would have crowed about winning, but the whole Bobby mess had left a deep taint that I didn’t want to touch too much more. I drove to the bank and deposited the check, then stopped at the store for more dog food, some sodas and various and sundry canned goods as if I were piling up for the winter. I was glad to be out of the Bobby Reynolds tragedy.

My neighbors the Mooneys pulled into my boat slip and waved at me to come down the path and meet them. I muttered short, pungent profanities beneath my breath as I smiled like a Judas and waved in return. I really can’t take their bickering at the best of times, and I wanted to be alone.

However, this was not to be. They waved more frantically for me to come to their boat which makes Dwayne’s look like a futuristic model. I stepped down the flagstones with dread. I didn’t want company, unless it was Murphy, and I really just didn’t want to think too much about anything at all.

“Jane, come with us to Foster’s,” Arista Mooney said, motioning me into the boat. “This weather won’t last forever.”

Her husband Lyle nodded at me. He wasn’t much of a talker unless Arista got under his skin and then the bickering began. They were both in their late fifties or early sixties. Their children were grown and gone and they had lived in the little house a few down from mine since they’d built it. Not one bit of remodeling or updating had occurred in all the years since, and repairs were a patch of roof here, a mended gate latch there. Trees and flotinia and laurel bushes obscured it from the bay except for steps made out of cinder block, pounded into the ground. An architectural haven it was not. An expensive waterfront property in need of TLC and lots of bucks it was.

“Did you hear they found that boy’s body in the lake?” Arista said. “The one that killed his family?” She shivered. “Get in, hon. Come on. I want one of those Cosmos that Manny serves up. Yumm!” She smacked her lips.

“I can’t go. I’m just beat.” I made a show of yawning. Besides the Mooneys’ company, I just didn’t feel like another trip to Foster’s, good weather or no.

“Lyle has a gift certificate. Come on, now. We want to take you to dinner. You can’t say no!”

This was unprecedented. I glanced at Lyle. His gray hair was hidden under a stained baseball cap but his yellow-collared T-shirt looked natty coupled with a pair of khaki shorts. The white socks with his loafers sort of spoiled the effect, but considering I was wearing my black capris and a white tank that probably needed a serious trip to the washing machine, I had no room to talk.

“My purse is back at the house,” I said, hooking a thumb in the direction I’d come.

Binks stepped onto my deck, looked down at us and gave a short, staccato bark.

“Is that a dog?” Arista asked, startled.

“That’s Binkster.”

“Been chasin’ parked cars, has he?” Lyle inserted, chuckling deep in his throat.

“You got a dog?” Arista stared at me as if I’d grown horns.

“A temporary duty.”

“My goodness. Is he nice?”

“She’s not bad,” I said.

“Would she like to go in the boat?” Arista waved at Binks who took that as an invitation and raced down the flagstones to stand beside me, her curly tail a-wag.

I don’t know how it happened but I went back for my purse, locked up the cottage and was sitting on the duct-taped white and red tuck-and-roll backseat with Binks on my lap, putt-putting out to the main lake before you could say the cheapskate sold out for free food. I’d managed to bring my cell phone. If I needed rescue I’d call Dwayne. Or maybe, Murphy.

It was evening and the sun burned hot and low in the western sky. Normally I need a jacket or sweater in anticipation of nightfall but today I felt overheated. It seemed as if I would never be cool again. As Lyle thrust the throttle forward and we skimmed across the main lake I turned my face to the resultant breeze. Binks did likewise, her velvety little brown ears flapping backwards.

We arrived at Foster’s On The Lake to join an already loud crowd crammed around the outdoor bar. Lyle maneuvered into a boat slip that another boat was waiting for. The captain tooted us in a series of furious bleats. I remember thinking, “We were here first, you idiot!” then wondered at my simmering hostility.

Binks could not go inside so we left her in the boat where she sat on the back gunwale and looked forlorn. People sitting on the patio made sad sounds and commented on how cute she was and couldn’t she come inside? Foster looked at them all as if they’d collectively lost their minds.

“That your dog?” he asked me suspiciously.

“She is for now.”

“It’s a girl?” He looked again at Binks’ Ernest Borgnine face.

“Most breeds come in male and female.”

“Y’sure?” he responded skeptically, still staring at the pug.

I heard a glass break and turned toward the crowd around the bar, two steps up. Several people backed away from the apparent cause of the incident, and I saw Heather, her eyes sort of starey and moist, gazing down at the shattered wine glass. She looked torn between laughter and tears. I was amazed she’d actually shown up in public, given the events of the week. Cotton was nowhere to be seen, which was expected.

“C’mon, Jane.” Arista motioned me to a table under a tilted umbrella whose lime green, plastic-stripped shade sparkled. Lyle grunted an order for bourbon and a Cosmo for his wife. I asked for bottled water.

“I’ll be right back,” I told them. I went back to Binky and poured water into the tiny cap of my bottle. She lapped at it. We both sat in the boat. I had no time to reflect on the fact that I’d eschewed human companionship for the pug when Heather staggered through the gate, slamming it behind her. Several people hung back, as if they’d been trying to engage her but didn’t know quite how. She looked wild and unsettled, her white sundress sporting a wet stain over one breast, possibly the result of her spilled wine. Spying me, she charged like a bull.

“You,” she sneered. “Working for Tess!”

“I’m sorry about Bobby,” I said.

“Everybody’s sorry about Bobby. Except the cops and the Feds and whoever else.” She flung her arm wide to encompass the lake and the whole world. “They’re all over the island.”

I could imagine. After all, Bobby’s body had been found in the lake. It stood to reason, didn’t it, that he might have been on his father’s island?

“Bobby was a killer,” Heather said. “I’m not sorry he’s gone and I’ll tell anybody that.”

“A lot of people won’t mourn his loss too much.”

“I had to get away from the whole damn thing. But Cotton won’t leave. This is killing him. He’s going to die because of it.” Her matter-of-fact manner would have been off-putting if she hadn’t been so drunk. “I considered you a friend!” she added, coming back to her first issue. “But you’re a
fucking
spy!”

Her scream seemed to echo across the water. Fortunately, music and noise from the bar probably buried the sound for those at Foster’s.

Paula Shepherd appeared on the other side of the gate. In a black short skirt and a red tank top, her skin tanned to a toasty brown, she had none of the hesitation of the others. “Heather,” she said, all smiles. “Brad’s ready to take us back.” She winked at another boat. Sure enough, her sidekick, Brad Gilles was at the helm, firing up the engine.

“Fuck you,” Heather said, stumbling, climbing into the Mooneys’ boat.

Paula didn’t even turn a hair. “Are you going home with her, then?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Paula nodded grimly and returned through the gate, through the patio, then opened another short gate further down where Brad was looking anxious at the wheel. They conferred and Paula climbed in. I watched them reverse. They took a sweep by our boat and Brad yelled, “You all right, Heather?”

Heather, who’d plopped herself in the seat next to the captain’s, closed her eyes as if in pain. “I need another drink. You got anything in this crappy piece of shit.”

“Don’t think so.”

“Figures.”

I skipped dinner and drinks with Arista and Lyle to stay in the boat. Arista came looking for me but upon spying Heather in our boat, scurried back to her table. Heather Reynolds was infamous, at least for today.

“You know what I hate the most?” Heather said after a long period of silence. I thought she’d passed out. “All the lies it takes. Everybody asking about Bobby when they know he’s a homicidal maniac. Well, I’m glad that part’s finished.” She slid me a look. “Murphy’s really mad at you. If you think you’ve got something going, think again.”

She was beginning to bug me. I was getting over feeling sorry for her in a big hurry. “Cotton lost a son today. I’m glad he’s got Murphy with him to offer support.”

“Murphy’s
not
his son,” she reminded me tersely.

“But he thinks of him that way.”

“Shit.” She staggered up to a pair of wobbly legs and glared down at me. Binks, who’d had her head on my lap, climbed to her stubby legs. She stared right back at Heather. This must have seemed like a call to arms, because Heather jumped back into the fray as if we were in a full-fledged fight. “Murphy doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t even like you. And Cotton thinks Murphy’s a pale imitation of Bobby. He thinks Bobby was everything. Bobby could do no wrong!”

“Well…that’s been proven not to be the truth.”

“Bobby was Mr. Lake Chinook Athlete. Bobby gets everything. Always. Even when he’s missing. Even when he’s NOT. Cotton’s so destroyed now that he knows it’s really, really true that Bobby’s dead. Now that everybody knows. Now that there’s no reason to pretend any longer. Bobby was IT. But it’s too late now, isn’t it? He’s dead. And the dead don’t inherit.” She glared at me triumphantly.

I wasn’t working for Tess any longer, but I couldn’t help myself. I said, “Sometimes the wives don’t either.”

Her face suffused with color. “If Murphy said he’s getting the island, he’s dead wrong. You can just dream all you want, but it ain’t gonna happen. Go be his slut. See what it gets you. You won’t get the island!”

With that she climbed over us and onto the dock, teetering her way back to the bar. The crowd quickly moved in, buying her a drink, commiserating, waiting for juicy news.

Arista and Lyle returned to the boat. “What happened?” Arista asked, all agog.

“Heather needed another drink.”

“You know her? Oh, my God. She’s married to the guy who owns the island. The murderer’s dad. What did she say? Do you like her? What’s she like?”

I shrugged.

Lyle turned on the ignition and glanced in the direction of the bar. Heather was pressed against the rail, her white wine glass tipping precariously.

“She can’t hold her liquor,” he said succinctly.

I woke the next morning in a state of mild confusion. It felt as if something momentous had happened. Oh, yes. Bobby Reynolds.

Throwing on my running gear I took Binks out for a quick potty trip, then headed to the Nook. It was still hot. My thoughts were on Heather, but they kept slipping toward Murphy. I had the feeling she was making up some of the stuff. She was mad at me but she was really mad at Bobby. And Murphy, for being the surrogate son.

I grimaced. I didn’t blame Murphy for talking to Cotton about my association with Tess. He liked Cotton and wanted to play fair. And even if they were all mad at me, there was nothing to do about it now.

At the Nook I grabbed a cup of coffee and settled myself on a stool. Billy Leonard came in. “How’s it going?” I asked.

“Good,” he answered.

“How are the hatchery fish?”

“The kids?” He waggled his hand back and forth to indicate so-so. “We got all this shit for college housing. You could go broke.”

“You’d give your kids every dime you own,” I said.