Current Affairs (Tiara Investigations Mysteries) (9 page)

“Maybe.”

“Why? He’s so nice.”

“I’ve decided that when I’m married, I’ll be married, and when I’m single, I’ll be single.”

“Well, then, can I ask something?” I said.

“Go ahead.”

“If you do, will you tell us what it’s like?” That got us laughing and took our minds off being shot at, sort of.

 
“Speaking of being single, you seem to have adjusted well.” Tara and I raised our sunglasses to our foreheads. Why was Victoria bringing this up? I laid back down, wishing Tara all the luck in the world responding.

“I never for a second missed him, but it was scary at first. What I realized about myself is, I want to know everything but not
have
to know anything.”

“Like what?” Vic was propped up on her arm.

“Oh, like how to rent a car in an airport you’ve never been to before, and being able to make connections when you fly. You probably take those things for granted with the business travel you had to do, but they scared me.”

“But you’re a lawyer. You didn’t have business trips?”
 

“Nope.
And my ex never wanted to go anywhere, at least not with me.”

I smiled with love. Tara had neither encouraged nor discouraged Victoria from doing whatever she decided to do.

“What are you smiling about?” Victoria was sitting up by then.

“
Mmm
, we sure cuss a lot. I inherited the ability from my Aunt Mary and then I honed my cussing skills in stables growing up. What about you two?”

“With two kids, I couldn’t cuss. I learned from you.”

 
“Yup, I never cussed till I started hanging out with one Ms. Leigh Reed.”

“Gosh, thanks guys. You two are so sweet, and it makes me feel so good.”

“You’re damn welcome.”

“Hell, yeah.”

I looked around to see if the Navy, actually I guess it would be the Coast Guard, had come for us. We were still alone. “You may not believe this, but cussing is frowned on in some circles.”

“No-o-o.”
Tara shook her head back and forth.

“I’ve never heard that. Are you sure?” Victoria’s church attire was a tan linen shirtdress and espadrilles.

“Don’t you think there are much more irksome things people say in conversation than cussing? Like asking and then answering a rhetorical question, just to show they know something you don’t.” I paused to think of others.

Victoria smoothed her skirt. “Or when you do know something and they say, ‘I knew that’ when you know good and well they didn’t.”

 
“Or when someone says something so obvious, it goes without saying. I think it’s irritating when people are surprised that it’s hot in Atlanta and talk about it like they were the first to realize it. I wish I had a nickel for every Northerner that came for the Democratic Convention or the Olympics that said, ‘It’s
sooo
hot.’” This Tara said in a first-rate New Jersey accent.

My eyes were closed, and I had no intention of opening them for a while. “I hate it when people say curse instead of cuss. It seems like a curse word would have more than four letters in it, and I find myself racking my brain to think of one that does. That’s why they call them four-letter words. Or when someone mispronounces a word and then says there are two ways to say it. Sure, you can say
pot
pouree
.”

“And there’s always, ‘good times, good times.’” After Victoria said this we all went into a sun stupor that a perfect-temperature day can bring on.

I thought about my friends. Good times, good times, indeed.

About a half hour later the Hall County police called Victoria’s cell phone to tell us the shooter had taken off before they arrived, and there was no one in the parking lot now. She had him on speaker phone, and we heard the officer say, “The coast is clear.”

“Pardon the pun?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

“Do you want to file a report?”

“Can we do that with the Gwinnett County police since that’s where he started following us?”

“Sure.”

On that note we headed back in. I dropped off the rest of Tiara Investigations, two and four legged, at the Cracker Barrel.

 
“Don’t go straight to Tara’s house,” I warned Victoria as we pulled up behind her Lexus SUV.
 

“Good idea.”

 
“Or better yet, I’ll follow you as far as Peachtree Industrial.”

“Very good idea.”
Tara was already looking around and chewing her bottom lip.
“Good gosh
a’mighty
.
I’m diet pill jumpy with no floors mopped at three a.m. to show for it.”

Seven

C
ontinuation of statement by Leigh Reed.
So many emotions flowed through my body and brain, trying to get my attention. Some I could name, like sadness that the world had disappointed me, and some I couldn’t. I even felt insulted, like, excuse me, did you just shoot that gun at
us
? If I didn’t stop moving I could postpone dealing with the feelings, right?
Made sense to me.

I had an apple with peanut butter for a late lunch, showered, threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater, tied a peace sign kerchief on Abby, and headed back out. Friends from different peace organizations were meeting up at Piedmont Park to hand out membership flyers. Sure, I wanted to do my bit for the cause, but I won’t deny I also wanted to be out in public. After being followed and shot at, and not knowing how much the good-for-nothing piece of shit knew about me, I didn’t care to be at home by myself.

I found Bobbi, the executive director of the women’s peace group I’m a member of, and we headed to our assigned street corner. I handed out flyers--
Support the
Troops ,
Oppose the War!—
and asked for signatures and email addresses. She gave out our signature bracelets, purple and yellow swirled, stamped with that message.
 
Soon we were chatting. “I haven’t seen you around much lately. Traveling?”

“No, just life.”
It was an answer that would have to suffice.

“Well, we’re glad you’re here today. We need all the help we can get.”

“Glad to be here.” The bracelets are always a big hit, and before we knew it a line had formed.

 
“By the way, do you think your husband would give us a briefing the next time he’s home?” Her usual can-do tone carried just a hint of tentativeness.

I thought for a moment. “Yeah, I’ll ask him, and I’m sure he will. That’s not really his kind of thing, but I think it’s important to hear what’s really going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ll let you know when he’s on leave again.”
 
I knew he wouldn’t be wild about the idea, but he’d do it. It would be fun for us to do this together.

“I hesitated to ask because I didn’t know how your husband felt about our organization. I thought generals’ wives were supposed to be apolitical.”

“I’m pretty sure a general came up with that little rule. I told my husband about my politics when we were dating. He’s on the other end of the spectrum, but we make it work.” As for not knowing I’m in this group,
puh-leeze
, like I would ever keep a secret from my husband. Perish the thought.

A couple of hours later Abby and I were
back
home. Everything looked normal from the driveway. I was happy my house sat just a friendly little distance from the road and vowed never again to whine for a larger front yard. I looked around at the mums, peonies and pansies. It’s an orderly
yard, and I don’t mean that as praise. I was glad to see that nothing was crushed or stepped on or disturbed in any way. The security alarm hadn’t gone off. Abby wasn’t trying to tell me anything, except that she was tired and wanted to nap. I opened the garage and drove in.

On my way upstairs for a shower and change of clothes, I turned on my intercom music system, and the whole house was filled with
Celso
Fonseca singing from one of his earlier CDs
, Slow Motion
Bossa
Nova.

I have two home offices. An upstairs bedroom is used for business files, and that door is closed when need be—read, when my husband is home. The furniture is white cottage style, and the chair is upholstered in a fabric of leaves and flowers.

My downstairs office is also a library and my husband’s office. Needless to say, I was cautious about leaving files in there. “Let’s go, girl,” I said to Abby. Her response was somewhere between a huff and a sigh, but she followed me back downstairs.

That office was where my laptop was left to charge. The furniture and book shelves are a rich mahogany, and the chair is leather.
 
I sat at the big, serious desk and installed the camera software and practiced taking pictures of my sleepy-eyed girl, downloading the photos off the camera and printing them. I enlarged a couple of them to eight by ten inches and propped them up against silver frames on the book case. Next I would try cropping a photo, but I
stopped,
my hands above the keyboard. I swiveled around and saw that I had covered up the photos of my husband. My mood deflated. I was so low I would have had to look up to see down. Just a few hours before when I was horseback riding, I had felt confident in myself and certain that everything was fine, but being shot at had cancelled that out. I wanted it all, and I didn’t know how long I could have this bifurcated life.

 
I went online to check for e-mails. There was one from my husband saying good morning. Even though Iraq is eight hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, we are always aware of each other’s time zone. I keep Zulu Time in mind, too, mostly out of habit. Z Time is Greenwich Mean Time, not adjusted to daylight saving time. The US military synchronizes according to Z Time.

I started to respond to my husband’s e-mail when the instant message box appeared. It was him, and my heart soared.

Are you waiting for anyone
? This is our code so that I will know it’s him.
 
Those were the first words he ever spoke to me. That was ten years and three months ago, and I was waiting for someone, but I didn’t know it.

I was sitting on the bleachers by the tennis courts waiting for a friend, I don’t even remember who, when he walked up. Tennis whites were made for that tan. His sleeves strained over the muscles in his shoulders and upper arms.
 
My eyes widened as I stared. Love at first sight.

He had to repeat himself, “Are you waiting for anyone? Would you like to hit a few balls?"

I managed a quick nod and followed him to a court, pulling my hair into the elastic band I kept around my wrist 24/7. He leaned over me as I opened a can of tennis balls. Pushing one ball into the pocket of my tennis
undies
and handing one to him, I walked to the base line. I tossed the ball and hit it over the net to him. With a one-handed backhand he sent the ball directly into the net.

He chuckled self-consciously, looking down and shaking his head. Then he took the ball out of his pocket and hit it to me. I ran to the midway point between the base line and service line and positioned myself with my shoulders perpendicular to the net. I hit the ball cross court, he returned it, and the rally lasted several minutes before I hit the ball wide.
 
I reached for the other ball in my pocket and hit it long. He caught it after the bounce and froze. The ball must have been moist from my perspiration. He turned and tapped the ball over the net. I ran toward the net and returned it. With another light touch, he moved closer to the net. After my return I was at the net and in position to volley. We both knew this was a high-risk strategy in singles. I returned his volley, and he returned mine. I slid my hands around the grip for a backhand volley. Just then our eyes met. The ball hit the strings of my racket and startled me, and we laughed. Our friends appeared, and we played doubles, but it was too late to save either of us.

Just like that, we fell in love. This was the man I had waited thirty-seven years to meet. A beautiful woman in her twenties is the object of competition, each man peeing higher on the tree than the last. By some miracle I had avoided marriage until my thirties. This gave me time to realize I had been the tree, all along. The testosterone-fueled egos that led these future leaders of corporate America to court me made them inferior partners, preening, boastful and selfish. I had chosen to be alone and different. But I knew him when I saw him.

As luck would have it, I’m a peace activist married to a career soldier.
 

I’m here,
Bellifortis
. That’s my code name for him. It means
he who is strong in war
. In these instant message conversations we have, I can’t ask where he is or what he’s doing in case some
unfriendlies
are eavesdropping; and we don’t say we miss one another or want one another, because that just makes it worse.

Good to reach you at home
.

Yes
, I answered, not sure what that comment meant.

How are you? Is everything okay
?

Yes, especially now that I’ve heard from you.

How is the weather there
? He didn’t mention Atlanta because he didn’t want to make it easy for a terrorist hacking the computer network to find out where I live. Since I hadn’t changed my name when I married, I felt anonymous and safe.
 
Except for seeing a client murdered and being shot at, except for those things, I felt completely safe.

Beautiful fall day.
Are you having breakfast now
?

If you call it that.
Not like your cook …

And he was gone. Oh, well, an e-mail and an instant message in one day
was
pretty good. Until last year my husband led night raids ferreting out insurgents. Now he
gamed
the missions but did not lead them himself. This is partly because of his age and partly to multiply his expertise exponentially. He had led these raids as he rose in rank even though it wasn’t expected or commonly done. Of course, I slept better now. I just hate it when people take dangerous risks, don’t you?

Several e-mail messages were jokes, one from a friend from my alma mater, the University of Georgia.
What do you call the useless piece of skin on the end of a man's penis?
His body.
 
Why does it take 100,000,000 sperm to fertilize one egg?
Because not one will stop and ask directions.
What's the best way to kill a man? Put a naked woman and a six-pack in front of him. Then tell him to pick one. Why did the man cross the road? He heard the chicken was a slut.

I would take these to read at our next stakeout, and while I waited for the printer to hand over my pages, I looked around at my life. My eyes fell on the American folk art I collected, almost all with practical uses: weathervanes, decoys, tables, and bowls. I had shopped at flea markets and antique shops on Sunday afternoons. This was just after the house was constructed, and I was building a home, but I had not erected one so much as I had gathered it around me. This had been important to do after I took a stand with my husband that I was not moving again. Surprisingly, he loved having a real house and found it a comfortable place to come home to. Now Tiara was my home as much as that five-thousand-square-foot structure.

Next, I checked the Tiara Investigations e-mail account, and there was one message. Savannah Westmoreland wanted to hire us. Sure, there’s a Contact Us button on the website Victoria designed for us, but no one had ever used it. (And Mr. FBI, can I give a shout out to her for this? The website looks elegant in a sparse kind of way. She couldn’t use our photos, addresses, real names, or complimentary letters from satisfied customers, and the website still looks good, and she deserves all the credit.)
 
This was a first, to receive a request for services via e-mail. It felt peculiar. Maybe it seemed too easy. I telephoned Victoria and Tara to see if they were up to a meeting Monday morning before the trip to The Peachtree Group, and they were, so I responded to the e-mail with the location and time.

Later my mother called. “I am so mad I could just spit.” I doubted my mother had ever spit in her life. Had hissy fits, sure, but spit, no. I would know it was a spat with one of her sisters if she referred to one of them as
your aunt.

“What’s the matter, Mother?”

“It’s your Aunt Thelma. She received your thank you note for the birthday flowers. Do you know why she called? She called to tell me she thought your handwriting was atrocious. Do you know what she claimed? She claimed she could hardly read what you wrote. Do you know what I told her? I informed her that you happen to have excellent penmanship. Well, I was so exasperated. Do you know what I did?” There had been so many rhetorical questions that I did not expect to have to answer this one.

“Well, do you?”

“No, Mother. What did you do?”

“I called your Aunt Opal, that’s what I did. And do you know what I found out? Your Aunt Thelma had already called her! Yes, that’s right. Your Aunt Thelma called your Aunt Opal and complained about your handwriting! And then she called me! Oh, I tell you ... Oh, Leigh, I’m getting another call. It’s probably one of your aunts. I should have known after I called your Aunt Opal she’d just turn around and call your Aunt Thelma. That is just something she would do. Are you doing all right? I’ll talk to you later.”

“Good-bye. Give them all my affection.” When I was sure she had hung up, I added,
“My two best friends and I were shot at today.” As I live and
breathe ...

I was glad my mother hadn’t brought up the subject of my marriage. She’s not
overly fond of my husband and describes his family as the sort of people that buy their own silver. And there’s something else. Even as she defends me, it’s always more about her. But what else is new? Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother, but I can see her clearly. I think.