In Plain Sight (3 page)

3

I ate dinner on the road and arrived at the big house outside Woodston about 7:30 that evening. The yard light was on, shining on an unfamiliar red car in the driveway. Rain and darkness hid Little Tom Lake, but I could hear the wind driving rough waves against the small dock down below the walking trail that separated the house from the narrow beach. Branches on the big old black walnut tree creaked overhead. Rain bounced off the flagstones of the walkway, but a pleasantly woodsy scent rose from the damp bark mulch around the shrubs. Sandy, unmindful of wind and rain, dashed down the front steps to meet me.

“Aunt Ivy, thank you, thank you for letting me stay!” Sandy is small and compact, but gymnastics makes her limber as a coil of spring steel, and she wrapped me in one of her surprisingly powerful hugs. “Mom and Dad are over at church, finishing things up. I think they’re glad to be rid of me and can’t wait to get away!” Her pert nose wrinkled, but the sparkle in her blue eyes belied any concern about abandonment. “I’ll carry your stuff in—”

“The suitcase on the front seat is all I need tonight. We can haul everything else in tomorrow.”

She ran out to the car for the suitcase. Another girl was standing under the coach light on the covered front porch. She looked a little older than Sandy and considerably more sophisticated. Tall, slim and willowy, dark-haired, very pretty even though wearing enough eye shadow to turn her eyes into smoky caverns.

This had to be Skye of the “outrageous outfits,” I decided. Her slithery, psychedelic-print skirt swirled around her ankles, but it hung so low on her hips that the bones jutted out like coat hangers. Enough bare skin separated the skirt and a skimpy knit top to invite pneumonia in this weather. She smiled, but her manner was reserved.

“Hi. I’m Sandy’s friend, Skye Ridenour.” She held out her hand, a formality I didn’t expect, and we shook. I tried not to look at her belly button, but, since it had a gold hoop attached to it, I found it difficult not to.

“I’m always pleased to meet Sandy’s friends. I don’t think we’ve met before.”

“I’ve only been in Woodston since last fall. I came here to live with my father then.”

Sandy came up the walkway with my old Montgomery Ward suitcase banging against her knees. “We’ve been making brownies for you, with pecans and chocolate-mint frosting!”

Skye looked at the watch on her left wrist. I’m not on time-keeping terms with expensive watches, but I’d guess she could buy an armful of my Timex for what that one cost. “I’d better get home.”

“Don’t run off because of me—”

“Oh no, it isn’t that. The Dumpling told me I had to be home by 7:30 to sit with Baby so she could go to the health club. I’ll get my jacket.”

Since it was already 7:35, it appeared that Skye wasn’t overly concerned about the deadline. I wondered who or what the Dumpling with a baby was, but I didn’t want Sandy’s friends to think I was a nosy LOL, so I didn’t ask.

Inside, Skye picked up a jacket in camouflage colors lying on the sofa. It, in contrast to the clingy top, was as bulky as a sleeping bag, with enough pockets to arouse a kangaroo to envy. She waved as she went out, fingernails flashing sparkly glitters.

“She’s walking home in the dark?” I asked, concerned.

“That’s her car out there.”

“Her
own
car?”

“She’s sixteen,” Sandy said, as if that explained everything.

Which I found a little scary.

Sandy carried the suitcase across the living room, where a fire crackled in the fireplace, and up the stairs to the corner room I always occupied. The big old house has four bedrooms and a bath upstairs, plus the master bedroom downstairs.

A four-poster bed covered with a multistar design quilt centered the far wall of my room. Around it was a comfortable hodgepodge, everything from a rolltop desk (maple, imitation antique) to a beanbag chair, a cane-bottomed rocker, and a genuine antique trunk as a nightstand. Underfoot were three old-fashioned braided rag rugs, courtesy of Mike’s grandmother. An appliquéd quilt, this an aunt’s handiwork, hung on one wall, a watercolor of an empty cross on a distant hill on another. I’d always felt at home in this room.

By the time I unpacked a few things and went downstairs, Mike and DeeAnn had returned. We ate brownies, delightfully tasty in spite of the odd pecan and mint combination, and had a lovely visit. They showed me how the new alarm system worked. I suspected it might deter my entry more often than that of any prowling Braxtons, but computer expert Sandy blithely assured me it was no problem. I decided I’d just let her manage it. Mike said he was leaving his impressive collection of mystery novels behind, which meant I wouldn’t run out of reading material for a long time. A sad note was news of the death of an elderly neighbor, Lois Watkins, a sweet and chatty woman whom I usually stopped in to visit when I was here.

We discussed possible dangers from the Braxtons, but Mike and DeeAnn were confident everything would be okay, or, as they’d already pointed out, they wouldn’t be leaving Sandy here.

The ’bird was still full of my stuff, so we used DeeAnn’s Buick to take Mike and DeeAnn to the airport in Fayetteville the next morning. Both Sandy and DeeAnn were teary when they said good-bye, but Sandy was upbeat and chatty on the way home.

“Well, here we are, Aunt Ivy. Just you and me!” she said cheerfully when she unlocked the house. She poked buttons on the new control panel when we stepped inside so the alarm system wouldn’t consider us intruders and alert the police.

I, however, was suddenly uneasily aware of how close the thick woods grew around the house—plenty of cover for creeping Braxtons. Of how big the house was—plenty of space for hiding Braxtons. Of how noticeable my white T-bird, sitting out there in the driveway, was—a vehicle with which the Braxtons were undoubtedly quite familiar.

Okay, get off it,
I told myself grumpily. The Braxtons had no clue where I was hiding out, and my biggest problem here would probably be deciding how to fill my time.

Not a problem those first few days.

That afternoon we lugged my stuff upstairs and unpacked. Sandy gave me a quick introduction to her computer and Internet system, although I begged off on chatting with cyberspace Romeos with yachts. Later, a half dozen teenage friends came over to play ping-pong in the basement and eat popcorn. Mike and DeeAnn called to report a safe arrival in Hawaii.

By next morning, when Sandy phoned to see if Skye wanted to go to church with us, the weather had metamorphosed into glorious spring. Skye was still in bed and didn’t go, but I’d been to Mike and DeeAnn’s church before, knew a few people, and felt comfortable and welcome. Afterward, DeeAnn’s friends urged me to join a Thursday morning women’s Bible study, which I gladly agreed to do. But I put off an invitation to join a quilting group. An earlier venture into quilting had made me think I’d as soon try working a crossword puzzle in Russian.

That afternoon Sandy and I dragged the aluminum skiff, which had been stored behind the garage for the winter, down to the water. A couple of young guys hiking on the public pathway, and taking interested notice of Sandy in her cutoffs, helped when we got stuck. I suspected young male help would appear if Sandy were stranded on an Antarctic ice floe.

The trail bustled with activity, hikers and joggers and dog walkers all out to enjoy the spring day, everyone talkative and friendly. The trail begins at the city park and follows all along the west edge of the lake, far past where the houses end.

We took turns rowing. Little Tom isn’t a wide lake, but it’s long, so we covered only the south half of it. I seldom venture into shorts, but Sandy had urged me into them today, and the sun felt good on my bare legs. Glittery rays reflected off the water into our sunglasses, and the faint breeze brought scents of damp earth awakening and squeals of children on the trail. From our vantage point out on the water, the shoreline was a misty green haze of bushes in fresh new leaves.

The far side of the lake, which had been wild woods when DeeAnn and Mike first moved here, was now divided into what Sandy said was called “Vintage Estates.” A building requirement for the area was that all the houses must be “period” style. Exactly what period was apparently up for grabs, as they ranged from Victorian to Craftsman—and even one in antebellum plantation style. It looked as if Scarlett O’Hara might stroll out of it at any moment. All were huge. Sandy said most of the residents were new, not local people. On this side of the lake, Sandy said, unlike over on the less-exclusive side, people owned right down to the water’s edge and there was no trail for public use.

The lawns weren’t lush yet, but they sloped gracefully from big houses to the water, with elaborate boathouses and private docks sticking out into the lake like manicured fingers. The boathouse at the plantation-style place matched the house, right down to white columns. Two peacocks graced one lawn. A guy sitting shirtless in a gingerbread-trim gazebo gave us a friendly wave. I decided if he wasn’t concerned about exposing his hairy belly to the world, I shouldn’t worry about my legs in shorts.

By the time Sandy gave my tired shoulders a rubdown that evening and supplied bubble-gum-scented bubble bath for a long soak in the tub, I wondered how I could have hesitated for a moment about having her here with me.

She went to school on Monday, of course, but I had plenty to keep me busy. I washed DeeAnn’s Buick and put it away in the double garage, alongside the SUV. The company was furnishing them with a car in Hawaii. Then it was such a great day that I washed the T-bird too and prudently parked it where it wasn’t quite so visible. Just in case.

But I really wasn’t feeling any ominous vibes from hostile Braxtons, and at about 3:00 I went for a walk. The trail wasn’t busy this weekday, and I met only one hiker. A jogger, actually, a lean woman with a blonde ponytail swinging out the back of a baseball cap. She jogged by me both coming and going, and I was impressed with her stamina. Although I couldn’t say that she looked as if she was enjoying herself much.

I saw her again the following day. This time I said hello. She gave me a distant nod and kept jogging. On the next day I tried again, adding, “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” Not even a nod today.

I was surprised and a bit vexed. Arkansas people, and especially Woodston folks, are usually so friendly. Unless she actually hadn’t seen me, of course. I am, by charitable description, petite and slender, an inconspicuous older woman. Less charitably, I am short and scrawny, an invisible little old lady (ILOL in this age of abbreviations). That invisibility, though disconcerting when I first discovered it, can be quite useful.

I didn’t see how this woman could have totally missed me on the trail, however. If I’d stuck out a foot she’d have fallen flat on her face.

On Thursday morning, before Bible study, I had another odd encounter. Sandy and I had left the skiff tied at the dock, and I decided to go down and check on it. Brush concealed the short dock from the house, so I was at the beach end of the warped boards before I realized a man was down on one knee at the other end. I didn’t really intend to sneak up on him, but something about his odd, almost furtive, position made me curious, and I stopped before my foot touched the dock.

Now I could see that he was holding binoculars to his eyes. I squinted, trying to see what he was studying so intently.

Birds? I’d spotted a cardinal the day before, and an owl had hooted out back of the house last night. Yet there was something oddly stealthy about the way he suddenly lowered the binoculars, took a quick glance around, and then raised them again.

When he looked around, his gaze skimmed right over me. Maybe it was because my green sweats blended into the haze of green bushes. No need for alarm, I told myself, just because he seemed to be acting a bit peculiar. But I realized I was uneasily fingering the emergency whistle that always hangs on a cord around my neck. It was a gift from my departed friend Thea, who gave it to me after an older woman was mugged in a parking lot back home.

But my uneasiness was surely foolish. This was broad daylight, and the man was simply … what?

When in doubt, I advised myself, ask.

“Anything interesting out there?” I called out.

The guy jumped to his feet as if I’d jabbed him with a barbecue fork, and for a moment I thought he was going to tumble off the dock. But he managed to right himself, and he turned and looked at me as if he thought I’d deliberately snuck up on him. He was good looking, in a sharp-faced way, but his deep tan struck me as out of place for this time of year in Woodston.

“I didn’t mean to startle you. It isn’t a private dock,” I added, because he’d wedged the binoculars against his chest as if trying to hide them. His wrinkled slouch hat was pulled down low, three fishing lures snagged above the droopy brim. His khaki pants ended high on his ankles, exposing heavy work boots. Blue suspenders crisscrossed his red plaid shirt and held the top of the pants well above his waist.

“It’s okay to use the dock. Everyone in the houses along here does. That’s my niece’s boat,” I said, pointing to the skiff. “The other one belongs to the neighbors.”

“Okay, thanks.” He turned his back to me, hesitated a moment, and then put the binoculars to his eyes again. They didn’t appear to be focused anywhere in particular.

“Beautiful day for bird-watching,” I suggested, mostly fishing for information.

“Yeah, it is.”

He raised the glasses higher and scanned the sky with so much speed that he couldn’t have focused on a flying elephant. I’m not familiar with bird-watchers, but somehow I doubted this was standard technique.

“Are you doing one of those bird count things?” I asked.

“Just looking.” After about thirty more seconds of rapid sky searching, he muttered something about not seeing much today, jammed a pair of mirrored sunglasses over his eyes, and hurried back up to the trail.

An unsettling thought suddenly raised goose bumps on my arms. Something didn’t feel right here. Could the Braxtons have gotten wind of my whereabouts and sent this guy to reconnoiter? Was all this looking around on the lake just a ruse, and his real purpose was to spy on
me
?