The Goodbye Body (2 page)

“When did he die?”

Dolly moistened her lips. “Only a year ago. This week would have been our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. He’d been promising me a South American cruise. We both loved ballroom dancing, especially the tango. We even entered competitions, although just for the fun of it. He was looking into buying a yacht when he had the heart attack.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said lamely, which is about the only way such a cliche can be said.

“Things happen.” Dolly refilled our glasses, then went into the house and brought out a platter of antipasto. “I hope you like this sort of thing. Bibi and I used to indulge ourselves on special occasions. Luckily, we found a way to make every day qualify as one.” She nibbled an olive, then looked at me. “You’re a widow, aren’t you? One of the women who volunteers at the arts center gift shop mentioned that your husband was a professor at the college.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t his preferred partner when it came to the tango. He was killed in a car accident some years ago.” I opted not to describe the flurry of chicken feathers that had covered the highway like light snow when he’d had an unfortunate encounter on a slippery slope. “Caron and I are doing well, though. She’ll graduate in two years, and I’m praying her grades will be good enough to get her a scholarship to a college in Manitoba or a design institute in Helsinki.”

“Bibi and I never had children. He had a stepdaughter from his first marriage, and several nieces and nephews who spent summers with us at the lake house. Most of them came to the memorial service. We haven’t been in touch since then, but that’s understandable. They always seemed more fond of Bibi’s money than of his second wife. He was very generous to them in his will.”

The topic was making me uncomfortable, so I stood up and went to the edge of the pool. “Do you swim often?”

“Laps in the morning, for the most part. I was hoping Caron and Inez might come with you.”

“They’re trying to hire a hitman,” I said, speculating on how much it might cost to keep the water as clear as the Caribbean but devoid of all the creepy denizens. I’ve never understood the allure of beaches, with all the unhealthy lumps of seaweed, crabs, bits of debris, and scuttly little bugs. And entirely too much sand.

“A hitman?” she echoed, alarmed.

I sat back down. “The delusions of postadolescent minds are beyond adult comprehension. Anyway, I doubt they’ll have much luck, and by now they’re probably off debating shades of toenail polish or the wisdom of dyeing their hair purple. Or shaving their heads, for that matter.”

Dolly smiled as she refilled my glass. “Better than tattoos, I suppose. Claire, I had an interesting idea while I was driving home this afternoon. I’ve been thinking for quite some time that I’d like to visit my sister in Dallas for a few weeks. She’s an invalid, and her health is, well, unpredictable. If I can persuade you to stay here while I’m gone, then I won’t have to worry about the house and yard. All you’ll have to do is collect the mail, make sure the pool maintenance guy shows up once a week, and water the houseplants. Caron can have her friends over to swim and barbecue by the pool. I have a big-screen TV and hundreds of videotapes. Whenever Bibi saw a movie that he liked, he bought it. The freezer in the garage is packed with hamburger meat and steaks.”

“I couldn’t possibly take advantage of—”

“You’re not, dear. This will solve your problem as well as mine. I haven’t seen my family since the funeral. I’d love the opportunity to see my sister, shop with her eldest daughter, and perhaps indulge myself at a spa for a weekend. You can water houseplants, can’t you?” She held up her hand before I could speak. “Yes, I know you’re going to say I’m just doing this to help you, but it’s not true. Now, I’ve already made airline reservations to fly to Dallas tomorrow afternoon. If Caron can take me to the airport, she can use my car while I’m gone. If you slip away from the bookstore at noon, I’ll give you the keys and show you how the security system works. The cleaning service comes once a week, as does the yardman.”

“But, Dolly,” I protested, although I could almost hear Caron screeching at me from behind a perfectly pruned shrub, “you truly don’t have to do this for my sake.”

“Please don’t throw me in that briar patch?”

I shrugged. “Something like that.”

“You would not believe this place!” Caron said as she and Inez came out onto the patio the following evening. “The kitchen has so many appliances that it’s frightening. It’s like one of those cooking shows where the chef has more obscure utensils than a surgeon. There’s probably something in there to peel peas.”

“Why would anyone peel peas?” asked Inez, whose inquiring mind tended toward pragmatism.

Caron ignored her and sat down beside me. “We’re going to take that blue bedroom at the end of the hall, if that’s okay. The bathroom has skylights and a Jacuzzi, along with what I presume is a bidet. Inez turned the spigot and about drowned.”

I noticed Inez’s hair was a bit limper than usual. “Use it at your own risk. Did you get Dolly to the airport with time to spare?”

“Yeah, I guess. She insisted that we drop her off at the curb. I offered to park and help her with her luggage, but she just laughed and told me she’d be fine. Her car is just incredible! It’s got an electronic control for the sunroof, leather seats, eight speakers for the radio and CD player, and a dashboard that tells you pretty much everything except what’s on TV. It’s also got this computer that shows you where you are and when to turn. I could practically live in that car.”

“Until you ran out of gas,” I said.

“Dolly—she insisted we call her that—gave me her gas station credit card.”

“Well, then,” I said, “there’s no need for you to unpack. Instead of the ‘Man Without a Country,’ you can be the Teenager Without a Stationary Abode.’“

Caron gave me a condescending look. “Sometimes you edge perilously close to being amusing, Mother. Inez and I thought we’d swim for a while. What’s for dinner?”

“We found a package of steaks in the freezer,” said Inez.

“Let’s settle for pizza tonight. I spent last night and most of the afternoon packing away our worldly possessions to protect them from toxic fumes. I assume you’ve brought everything you’ll need for two weeks.”

“Yeah,” muttered Caron, “unless Louis Wilderberry has an epiphany and invites me out to a really fancy French restaurant. In that case, I can wear one of Dolly’s outfits. She has some really cool clothes.”

I gave her an icy maternal stare. “You are not to go poking through her personal things. Stay out of her closets, jewelry, and bathroom cabinets. She has been kind enough to allow us to—”

“I know, I know. I was kidding, okay? Louis Wilderberry will never stop nuzzling Rhonda’s neck long enough to notice I’m on the same planet. Dolly did tell us to help ourselves to anything in the house, though. She even said we could have big parties.”

“Over my dead body,” I said. “I don’t even want you to invite a few people over without checking with me first. Unless Dolly adopts you, this is not your house. We’re going to leave it exactly as we found it. Understand?”

“She said to help ourselves to the food and sodas,” said Inez.

“Which we shall do, but with moderation.” I poured a scant inch of scotch in my glass, hoping they wouldn’t notice the label (or realize its significance, anyway). “Why don’t you take out enough hamburger meat for a barbecue tomorrow night? You can invite a couple of friends and I’ll invite Peter.”

Caron’s eyes narrowed. “So he can arrest us if we track mud into the living room?”

“Exactly.”

The next morning I drove by my duplex on the way to the bookstore. The downstairs tenants had piled boxes and duffel bags on the porch. No vans with plastic insects on the roof were parked in the vicinity, but perhaps Mr. Kalker was worried that any attempt to fumigate would be fatal to said tenants, who may well have been aberrant variations of bedbugs and silverfish.

Caron and Inez had been asleep when I left, which was not worrisome since they had watched movies most of the night. I’d fallen asleep to spates of machine-gun fire, squealing tires, and an occasional shriek. Bibi had not been a Disney fan.

Peter Rosen, man of my dreams (and occasional night mares), wandered into the bookstore late in the morning. He looked as though he belonged in an ad in an upscale men’s magazine, replete with tennis racket in hand and a sweater flung over his broad shoulder. However, he was but a lieutenant in the Farberville Police Department, and his warm brown eyes were twinkling at me rather than at a bottle of imported vodka.

“What’s happening at your place?” he asked.

I told him about my various infestations and successful resolution with Mr. Kalker. “Instead of living on the street and standing in soup lines,” I added, “Caron and I have taken residence in a house west of the stadium. Would you like to inspect the property and have hamburgers by the pool with us this evening?”

“Do you know how to use a grill?”

“Of course I do. Dolly showed me how to turn it on and off. I’m not promising the burgers will be Cordon Bleu, and I’ll be serving ketchup instead of Dijon mustard. Shall we say around seven?”

Peter grinned. “A gourmet meal, a moonlit patio, the lapping of water, and the distant call of whip-poor-wills. Any chance the girls might be enticed to go out to a movie while we engage in a bit of skinny-dipping and other unseemly activities?”

“No farther than the den, I’m afraid. There’s an enormous television set and more videos than the average rental store, as well as unlimited sodas and frozen desserts. By the end of two weeks, they won’t just be couch potatoes— they’ll be the size of Idaho.”

We chatted for a while, even ducking into my office for a bit of activity, albeit pubescent, that would have earned him a reprimand from his superiors had he been spotted while on duty. Eventually his beeper beeped, and he left to find out what felony was in the process of being perpetrated. I returned to the unenviable chore of matching invoice lists to stock. Without the somewhat reliable influx of Farber College students clutching reading lists (or seeking condensed versions of said contents), customers appeared only sporadically, and often to buy only a thick paperback to take on vacation. My science fiction hippie came by, as he did on a daily basis, to goggle at the covers of the more preposterous paperbacks and assess his chances of shoplifting. I frisked him before he left, but he seemed to enjoy it. I’d ban him from the bookstore if it weren’t for his puckish demeanor framed by a frizzy beard and shoulder-length hair. I could easily imagine him living under one of the quaint wooden bridges in the nearby park. Billy goats, take care.

I sat down on the stool behind the counter and picked up a pencil. In my naivete, I’d assumed that owning a bookstore meant surrounding myself with more books than I could ever read. As it was, I found myself immersed in invoices, bills, IRS paperwork, and hard, uncaring numbers that were the anthesis of lovely, lyrical words.

My thoughts were far from lyrical when the phone rang.

“Mother,” Caron began abruptly, “you have to come here right now! I mean it. The police are on the way. Inez is about to throw up, and I’m feeling kind of queasy myself.”

I dropped the pencil. “What’s going on? The police? Has someone been hurt?”

“I really don’t have time for dumb questions. I can already hear sirens. Just get up here, okay?”

She slammed down the receiver. I replaced mine more gently and tried to make sense of the call. Police, rather than paramedics or firefighters. That was good. Caron and Inez were still breathing, if unsteadily. That, too, was good. Caron had promised to ask my permission before inviting anyone to Dolly’s house to swim, so presumably they’d been the only ones there. A burglar would not have ventured into a home in the middle of the afternoon, especially when it was obviously occupied.

I stopped myself from further speculation, locked the front door of the store, and drove as quickly as I dared through the campus and labyrinth of shady streets on the hillside. A police car was parked in the driveway, its blue lights still flashing. I hurried into the house, where I found Caron pacing in the living room and Inez hiccuping in a corner. The two uniformed officers, both of whom resembled junior high basketball players, glowered at me as I halted.

“You know anything about this, ma’am?” asked one of them.

“Nothing whatsoever,” I said. I caught Caron’s arm. “Are you okay? Did someone attempt to … hurt you or Inez?”

Caron pulled herself free. “He was already dead, for pity’s sake.”

The second officer smirked. “But not real dead, since he upped and left before we got here.”

“Like in some stupid zombie movie?” countered Caron, who does not tolerate any smirks aimed in her direction. “He was dead. I saw him, and so did Inez, and we can assure you that he was ‘real dead.’“

“That’s right,” Inez said between hiccups. “At my uncle’s funeral, there was an open casket and—”

“Would somebody please tell me what’s going on?” I said without my customary mild modulation. “Who is this dead man?”

“He wasn’t dead, ma’am,” said one of the officers.

Caron spun around. “He most certainly was!”

“Then where is he?”

“How should I know?” she said, then resumed pacing. “All I know is that Inez and I saw him, and He Was Dead! Why don’t you stop scratching your pimples and go find him?”

“So you think he’s a zombie? Maybe you and your girlfriend have been drinking beer all afternoon out by that fancy pool? Smoking a little weed, too?”

I pointed at the officers. “You two go wait out front while I talk to the girls, understand?” Once they were gone, I made Caron sit down, then said, “Tell me exactly what happened.”

She took a few deep breaths. “Inez and I got up about noon, and—”

“It was actually almost one,” said Inez as she joined us. “I was supposed to call my mother at noon because she and my father were scheduled for a three o’clock flight to Toronto, where they get on a train to British Columbia. My mother likes to leave in plenty of time to get to the airport in case they have a flat tire or something.”