Morning Glory Circle (9 page)

“No proof,” she said.

“I guess,” Scott said, and rubbed his forehead.

“Aren’t you worn out?” Maggie asked him over the loud Irish folk music Patrick was playing.

Scott had worked night shifts for the past three nights, and was now switching to three days in a row.

“No,” he said, “I had a really long nap this afternoon.”

“How’s the head?” she asked.

“No problems,” he said.

Patrick was filling glasses and flirting with some women at the bar, and Mandy, who worked in the evenings, was serving drinks at the tables and booths. Their Uncle Ian was holding down the far end of the bar next to the entrance, greeting new customers, and encouraging the ones who left to come back and visit. As Maggie and Mandy tried to hold a conversation over the loud buzz of the crowd and music, Maggie noticed Scott rub his forehead again, and realized the combination of noise and cigarette smoke was probably getting to him.

“Let’s go,” she said, and drained the last of her beer.

Scott walked her to the back door of the bookstore, and, as they were away from prying eyes, gave her a warm hug and a lingering kiss. Maggie let herself enjoy his warm embrace, the smell of his skin, and intensity of the attraction between them. She was tempted to invite him up, but stopped herself just as the words were about to leave her lips. There was no half way with Scott Gordon; if she slept with him they were as good as engaged in his eyes.

“I don’t want to stop,” he said.

He pushed her up against the back door and kissed her again, with an urgency that thrilled her and scared her to death. She was quickly losing control of her senses, and pushed him away.

“Maggie,” he said, and the longing and desire in his voice almost persuaded her. “Let me come in.”

“Get out of here,” she said. “You’re as bad as that cat of yours, always following me home and wanting to come inside.”

“You’re considering it, though,” Scott said. “I can feel it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Maggie said, and unlocked the back door.

“You’re weakening,” he taunted as he went down the steps and walked away.

The cafe was busy even though it was late, and Maggie hoped the noise wasn’t keeping Caroline awake. She needn’t have worried. When Maggie went upstairs, she found a note from Caroline saying she’d gone to Drew’s for dinner.

“That was quick,” Hannah said when Maggie called to tell her. “I hadn’t even got my matchmaking juices flowing yet.”

Drew was now living in a much nicer, warmer place than the sad shack he had been renting from Theo Eldridge the month before. Maggie, Hannah, Scott, Patrick, and Ed had helped him clean, paint, and move into one of the small, one-bedroom apartments that used to be servants’ quarters over Mamie Rodefeffer’s vast garage. Mamie loved having someone close by to observe and criticize, and if that irritated Drew, he had only to remember the drafty fire hazard he’d left behind to find a good reason to put up with it.

“Let’s make a bet about how soon they sleep together,” Hannah suggested

“She’s not likely to start a new relationship so quickly,” Maggie protested.

But she was wrong. Caroline didn’t call or come back to Maggie’s that night.

After Scott left Maggie’s, he walked down to Lotus Avenue to check in again at Margie’s. Everything looked just as it had when he left earlier. Scott went back up to Margie’s room and looked around, determined to find some clue as to where she went. Frustrated by the lack of personal effects in the room, Scott picked up Margie’s pillow to see if anything was hidden under it. There was nothing. He knelt down and felt under the twin mattress, and found a manila envelope. Inside was a first class ticket to Maui, a new passport, a travel agent’s packet of brochures, and a detailed itinerary. She had rented a suite at a luxury hotel right on the beach. This was obviously her plan for after her mother moved into the retirement home, but how could she afford it? The plane tickets were for today’s date.

‘She’s missed her flight,’ Scott thought. ‘Where in the world is she?’

Scott searched the room again, not worrying this time if he displaced anything or made a mess. The only other clue he found was a pamphlet hidden between her neatly folded nightgowns in a dresser drawer. It was from a plastic surgery center in Los Angeles that touted “Extreme Makeovers.”

‘How could she afford all this?’ he wondered.

Scott had arranged for her bank accounts to be frozen when he found out about the embezzling, and if she wanted any money she had to get approval from the bank trustee assigned to her.

‘Maybe she has a large amount of cash squirreled away somewhere,’ he thought.

Scott was reminded of the secret room in the lodge Theo had used to hide money, drugs, and blackmail fodder. He wondered where Margie’s secret room was. Scott ran his hand along the paneling all around the room, below the slanted ceiling. There were no doors into the crawlspace, and the paneling looked and felt continuous. He checked the floorboards and couldn’t find any that lifted up.

Scott walked home wondering if he could make a missing person claim on Margie without Enid getting involved. He decided to wait until morning, check the house again, and then call someone at the county sheriff’s office to see what he could do. Sarah Albright, the county sheriff’s office investigator, would no doubt know, and Scott had her number on speed dial. He didn’t want to stir up that wasp’s nest, though, if he could help it. Sarah got under his skin, but not in a good way, and certainly not in the way she wanted.

As he passed the mobile home park, Scott saw Ed walking Mandy’s son Tommy home, and he met them at the corner of Iris Avenue.

“Any sign of Margie?” Ed asked him.

“No, and I’m starting to think there’s cause to worry.”

“I’m going up to the Thorn after this, want to join me?”

“Sure.”

They walked Tommy home, and made sure the doors of the trailer were locked tight before they left him. The trailer next door, which belonged to Phyllis Davis, had a light on inside.

“Phyllis isn’t back, is she?” Scott asked.

Phyllis had been Theo’s lover and blackmail accomplice, and had unwittingly provided his killer with the motive to murder him.

“She’s living in one of the rooms behind the Roadhouse, near the highway,” Ed said. “We heard she’s rented the trailer to someone but we haven’t seen who it is yet.”

Scott told him about the plane tickets, hotel reservation, the plastic surgery pamphlet, and the keys, purse, and coat being in Margie’s house.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Ed said. “I asked everyone I saw today if they’d seen her, and no one had. According to everyone I spoke to, since she quit at the post office, Margie’s been staying home all day and walking around town late at night.”

“If she hadn’t missed that plane, I’d say she’s taken off. That was an expensive ticket to let go to waste.”

“Maybe she set it up to look as if she’s disappeared, and she’s created a new identity for herself somewhere else.”

“She’s certainly devious enough,” Scott said.

The bar was packed with tourists, loud fiddle music was blaring, and a thick layer of smoke hovered near the ceiling.

“Let’s just go back to my house and have a beer,” Ed said, knowing Scott couldn’t handle the smoke.

“If you don’t care,” Scott said, “I’m just going to head home. I’m beat.”

“No problem,” Ed said, and waved goodbye as he entered the noisy bar.

Scott crossed Rose Hill Avenue and turned right down the alley. Duke, the huge striped tomcat that used to belong to the vet, had recently moved in with Scott, and was coming down the alley from the other direction. He meowed at Scott.

“Hey buddy,” Scott said as they met. “Are you coming home?”

Duke twined around Scott’s legs briefly in an affectionate greeting before continuing on in the direction he’d been headed. Scott shook his head and watched him go.

“Be careful,” he told the big cat, and then headed toward home.

Maggie was so mad at Caroline for ditching them she couldn’t quit talking about it. She vented all evening to Hannah on the phone, and was still complaining about it the next morning while the two of them carried supplies from a delivery truck in the alley through the back door into the bakery kitchen.

“That’s why she didn’t eat much of the food I fixed,” Maggie said. “She had plans for later.”

Hannah had the ‘I told you so’ look on her face.

“I guess she’s done with us,” Maggie said. “She needed a ride home from the airport, and that was all.”

“You’re only mistake was in forgetting what a flake she is,” Hannah said. “This isn’t the first time she’s done this to us, you know.”

“I know, I know,” Maggie said. “I always fall for it. I’m such an idiot.”

“You’re not at fault for trying to help a friend,” Hannah said, as she handed Maggie two big tins of baking powder to shelve. “You just forgot who you were dealing with.”

It was coming back to Maggie now, all the times Caroline had cancelled at the last minute because of the “cool” people she had just met, or the “awesome” place she had an opportunity to go to, always on the spur of the moment. Often Caroline forgot to call and let her know she was canceling, and Maggie would only find out why Caroline didn’t show up at the concert venue in June when she got a postcard from her in December.

Maggie was wondering now why she had even bothered to stay in touch with Caroline over all these years. Caroline, Hannah, Maggie, and their cousin Claire had all been close friends as little girls, but that was a long time ago. If she had let go of her, Caroline probably would have been content to drift away, and never look back. Maggie stewed about this as she and Hannah helped bake the merchandise they would sell at the festival.

Hannah and Maggie worked in the kitchen all morning making many dozens of cookies, brownies and flaky turnovers using recipes they knew so well they hardly had to refer to them. It helped that they had an industrial size mixing machine and two large professional ovens, each of which held several pans on the wire racks inside. It was hot, thirsty work, and they drank what felt like gallons of ice water, stepping outside frequently to enjoy the cold air in the alley behind the bakery. Hannah and Maggie had been doing this work since they were old enough to see over the edge of the counter, and they worked well together, never getting in each other’s way.

By mid morning there was still no sign of Caroline. When Maggie went back to her apartment during a break she saw that Caroline had taken her backpack and the clothes she had lent her, as well as the magazines and newspapers she took from Maggie’s store.

“She came and got all her things while we were working here this morning,” Maggie said to Hannah when she returned to the bakery. “She left this note.”

Hannah read the note out loud, “Thanks for the hospitality. We’ll get together soon. Love and Light, C.” 

“I can’t believe she did that,” Maggie said. “She said she was going to help us today.”

“And once again, we’ve been used and discarded by Caroline Eldridge,” Hannah said.

“I feel like such an idiot,” Maggie said. “I really thought we were friends.

“Are we done now, with her and her bullshit?” Hannah asked Maggie.

“Oh yeah,” Maggie said. “We’re done.”

Ed Harrison, editor-in-chief and owner of the Rose Hill Sentinel, was standing in the front room of the newspaper office, arguing with Ethel Birch. Ethel, who was 79 years of age, was a homemaking enthusiast and the writer of the “Home Matters” column in the weekly newspaper. She was a stickler for tradition, and still typed her columns on an old Royal manual typewriter. She was a stout, dour looking woman who hadn’t changed her hairstyle in half a century, still sewed all her own clothes, knitted her own cardigans, and enjoyed crocheting covers for inanimate objects. Her gardening claim to fame was growing huge Dahlias which were as big as dinner plates.

“It’s too long,” Ed told her. “You have to cut twenty words.”

“It’s the same length it always is,” she insisted. “I used the same size paper and the same margin settings I have used for almost fifty years. I ought to know how long my own column is.”

“I have explained this to you many times, Ethel,” Ed said. “What fits on your paper does not necessarily fit in the column.”

“Your father always made it fit.”

“You need to cut twenty words.”

“Your grandfather always made it fit.”

“Fine,” he said. “I will cut them for you.”

“Oh, no you won’t,” she said, clasping the page to her prodigious bosom. “You butchered it once before and I’m not going to let that happen again.”

Ed calmly handed her a red pencil. Ethel huffily arranged herself at the extra desk by the window, and put on her half-moon reading glasses, which hung from a beaded chain around her neck.

Ed went back to his desk, where he was wrestling with a web-site-building program. He had recently decided to bite the bullet and put up a Sentinel web site, and was determined to do it all by himself. He purchased the domain address and set up an account with a service provider, and was now working on designing the site. When he followed the instructions that came with the software it worked, but he couldn’t understand why it worked, and that frustrated him.

The front door opened and Mandy came in smiling, carrying a plate of hot doughnuts.

“Hey good lookin’,” she said, but then stopped abruptly when she saw Ethel, who was giving her a stern look over her reading glasses.

“Good morning,” Ed said, as he jumped up and took the plate from her, conscious of Ethel’s eagle eye and bloodhound nose for gossip. “You really shouldn’t keep bringing me these. I’m getting fat.”

Mandy just beamed at Ed, flashing her big green eyes, dimples, and white teeth. A Fitzpatrick Bakery apron was wrapped around her slim, petite frame, and her long blonde hair was twisted up on top of her head.

“Well, I know how much you like ‘em,” Mandy said in her Tennessee twang.

Ed glanced at Ethel, who wasn’t even pretending not to listen.

“Doughnut, Ethel?” he offered.

“No,” Ethel said, obviously enjoying Ed’s discomfort. “I can’t have the sugar, but you two enjoy yourselves.”

Ed felt awkward and Mandy just stood there, smiling up at him like a child waiting for a pat on the head.

“Well, thanks,” Ed said.

“You goin’ to the bonfire tomorrow night?” Mandy asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I have to take photos for the paper.”

“Would ya mind if Tommy tagged along with ya? I gotta work, and I don’t like him runnin’ around alone after dark.”

“No, that’s fine, I don’t mind,” Ed said. “Tell him to come over here after dinner and we’ll go together.”

“Thanks,” Mandy said. “See ya later.”

She was still flashing those white teeth and dimples as she went out the door.

Ed braced himself for Ethel’s comment.

“She’s too young for you,” she said.

“I know,” Ed said. “We’re just friends.”

“Hah,” Ethel said. “She’s got a big crush on you.”

“That may be true,” Ed said, “but I’m not going to do anything about it.”

“Fiddlesticks,” Ethel said. “Most men would give an eyetooth to have a pretty young thing like that chasing after them.”

“Well, I’m not like most men, I guess.”

“You aren’t made of stone,” Ethel said.

“I’m not an idiot, either.”

“We’ll see,” she said, smirking as she returned to her copy editing.

Ed didn’t know what to do about Mandy. As improbable as it seemed to him, she was seriously infatuated, and he just kept hoping it would pass, like the flu or the measles. He was attracted to her, how could he not be? She was young, pretty, and sweet.

‘If I was ten years younger,’ he told himself.

But that wasn’t true. Ten years earlier he’d been married to and madly in love with the sexy, ambitious Eve, whom he met in their college journalism program. After they graduated they worked on the same newspaper in Philadelphia. When his father died, Ed came back to Rose Hill to take over the family’s newspaper business. He and Eve tried to keep their relationship going long distance for awhile before realizing they wanted very different things out of life. Being the wife of a weekly newspaper editor in the sleepy little town of Rose Hill was not what Eve had in mind.

Ed suddenly realized he had eaten half the doughnuts on the plate and done no work on the web site since Mandy left. He pushed the plate away.

“She’s fattening you up,” Ethel said, “so you can’t get away.”

“Twenty words,” Ed warned her. “Or I’ll do it myself.”

The Rose Hill Winter Festival was held in the field behind the Foxglove Mobile Home Park, between Rose Hill Avenue and the Little Bear River. One of the city’s snowplow drivers plowed wide swaths into and around the four to six foot drifts of snow that covered two acres of roughly flat ground, and the fire department set up a temporary fence to mark off the boundaries and keep small children (and drunken adults) off the train tracks and out of the river.

There was a string of food vending caravans lined up on Marigold Avenue, waiting to be towed into place. While Scott directed traffic, Patrick drove the tractor that pulled each caravan. Maggie’s sister-in-law Ava was setting up the games area for the littlest children, and some volunteer firefighters were designating the other contest areas with red flags atop six-foot tall metal rods, which could be seen over the highest drifts.

At noon Hannah and Maggie took a break from the hot bakery kitchen, went to the diner, and ordered late breakfasts. Evidently Caroline had been making the rounds, because lots of people came up to them and mentioned seeing her, surprised she was back a week early. Maggie was very polite but vague, saying she didn’t know what Caroline’s plans were.

“Everyone thinks we’re still her best friends,” Maggie said to Hannah, “so of course we should know what she’s doing.”

“You gotta let it go now,” Hannah said. “That’s just the way Caroline is and she’s never going to change.”

But Maggie couldn’t let it go. She knew she should, but she felt used and discarded.

“Did she give your keys back?” Hannah asked her.

“Yes,” Maggie said.

“Did she leave any money to repay you for all you spent on her yesterday? You know, for the gas for the evil SUV we drove for two and a half hours to pick her up at the crack of dawn, the magazines and newspapers made out of all those defenseless trees, and all the other stuff you bought?”

“No,” Maggie said. “But that’s my problem, not hers. She didn’t ask me to buy her that stuff, I offered.”

“You’re not going to give yourself a break, are you?” Hannah said, while mashing her fried eggs up in a gross looking puddle of soft yolk she planned to scrape up with toast. “Let’s melt some candles, make a Caroline doll, and stick it with pins so you’ll feel better.”

Maggie didn’t answer, but she didn’t think she was going to get over her hurt feelings quickly just because Hannah was already tired of hearing about it. She knew she was pouting but she didn’t care.

“Okay, let’s think up her comic book name,” Hannah suggested. “That’ll make you feel better.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“C’mon, you know you want to. How about ‘Rich E. McBitchy?’”

“She’s not bitchy, her sister is.”

“Yeah, but Gwyneth already has her comic book name. She’s Twiglet, the British Bumstick. Her super power is sucking all the fun out of a room just by entering it. She’s a member of the League of Fantastic Funsuckers.”

Maggie cracked a smile at that.

“That’s right,” Hannah said. “Now you’re back on board. Tell you what, Caroline can be ‘Stinky Megabucks.’”

“How about ‘Stinky Megabucks, the Vegan Menace?’”

“Perfect,” Hannah said. “I will enter that in the official handbook.”

Caroline had gone to school with Hannah, Maggie, and their cousin Claire, from kindergarten through seventh grade at Rose Hill Elementary, and the four had been inseparable. Mrs. Eldridge may have looked down her nose at the local girls, with their hand-me-down play clothes and clumsy way around her fine china, but they were Caroline’s only friends, so she tolerated them.

The summer after seventh grade Caroline’s brother Brad drowned, and their mother used that as an excuse to send her youngest daughter to boarding school. Caroline came back each summer and palled around with Hannah, Maggie, and Claire, but as much as they loved her, she grew up in a much different culture, with different types of friends and interests than those of her small town counterparts. They saw less and less of her until, after her father passed away and her mother went back to England, she rarely came back to Rose Hill.

Maggie had once driven to Dulles airport in DC to see Caroline during a long flight layover after Caroline called and begged her to. Maggie ended up holding her friend’s backpack for forty-five minutes while Caroline argued with the boyfriend who had come to the airport expecting to join her on the next leg of her trip, only to get dumped as soon as he arrived. When he got there, he found out Caroline was actually going with a man she’d met at the Glastonbury Music Festival in England the week before. The new boyfriend drank in the airport lounge while the old boyfriend, who had turned down a prestigious internship and sublet his apartment in order to go on this trip, cried in front of everyone at the departure gate. Maggie couldn’t remember the dumped boyfriend’s name, but the new one from London was memorably named “Giles Thripps-Maythorne III.” Maggie had later named a goldfish after him.