Part 14 (2/2)
”Out of? Don't count your chickens. Werner could be waiting at the boathouse when we get back.”
”So let's put the boat in the Sweets' boathouse and walk home.”
”Eve Meyers, you wicked little devil. Speaking of which, what do you think that conglomerate was going to pay Sampson for his corner lot?”
”Why does it matter now?”
”I think knowing would give us an idea of how badly someone might want Sampson dead.”
”Unless you go through Sampson's papers, I don't see how you can find out.”
”I own the corner lot that mirrors Sampson's. I'll give the company a call and see if they make an offer.”
”You wouldn't sell. Would you?”
”Of course not. But they wouldn't know that. I want a jumping-off figure.”
”You mean a going-up-in-flames figure?”
”Ouch, but yes.” After Eve left, I went up to soak in a hot tub and try to put my random puzzle pieces together, but nothing fit-yet.
By the time I climbed in bed, nothing made sense. I dreamed of dead neighbors and bags of bones. Once, I called my knowledge ”synchronicity.” Consoling word.
Aunt Fiona would call it ”universal intervention” if I believed in Fee's ”pay attention to the signs” theory.
By six A.M., only ”lunacy” made sense. My own. Dad would agree. Aunt Fiona would have a different take. I couldn't wait to see her. I showered and chose a seventies, front-zip Lolita minidress-easy off when trying on clothes-Belgian loafers in lizard calf, and a Vuitton bag.
I grabbed the garment bag I'd dropped over the cape and dress set last night and the white plastic garbage bag I dropped the quilt in from the drawer. I couldn't find my father, but his car sat in the drive so I left a note. ”Borrowing your car. Call if you need it.”
I rang Aunt Fiona's doorbell at seven but she answered in her robe. Very unusual. ”Madeira,” she said, looking rather like a deer in headlights.
”You're having a sleep in, aren't you? I'm sorry. I'll come back later.”
”No. No, I'm up. Come in.”
”Fee, I can't find that spare toothbrush.” My father came into the living room wearing nothing but his pajama bottoms, the towel he was using to dry his hair temporarily covering his eyes.
”Harry,” Aunt Fiona said. ”We have company.”
Twenty-two.
Fas.h.i.+on is the science of appearance, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.
-HENRY FIELDING.
”Madeira!” My father's ears positively glowed. How cute and guilty did he look with his salt-and-pepper hair spiked in all directions and his towel now unnecessarily covering him like a loincloth? ”I slept on the sofa,” he said. ”See the blank-” His gaze whipped to Fiona.
”I like a neat house.” She shrugged. ”I put the bedding away.”
I turned back to my dad. For the second time that I could recall, he shocked me. ”Dad, you have a tattoo.” Harry Cutler with a pentagram tat on his shoulder. No wonder he wore unders.h.i.+rts summer and winter.
”Your mother made me do it. We'd been touring the Finger Lakes wineries. Had a bit too much Madeira at one. That was the n-I didn't know what it meant. You don't, do you?”
”Sure,” I said. ”It's a star.” A pentacle he'd gotten nine months before my birth. He could have said wine instead of Madeira and I wouldn't know, but that was Harry. ”You are such a lousy liar,” I said.
”No, it's true.”
”I know it is, Dad.” Which meant that he had, indeed, slept on the sofa. ”So, what's up with you two?”
”I took Fee to a psychologist friend yesterday,” my father said, ”because of the casket thing. He talked to her and said she shouldn't be alone for a while, so I stayed here so she could sleep better in her own bed.”
I looked between him and Aunt Fiona. ”I see.”
”Your father's only helping me out of guilt,” she said. ”Because he mocked me.”
”Yes, and the ogre needs to get dressed,” my father snapped, disappearing.
”The spare toothbrushes are in the top drawer of the vanity. In the back,” Aunt Fiona yelled.
”I need to talk to you,” I whispered as I dragged her toward her sunroom.
”We'll have breakfast together, the three of us,” she said, smile forced. ”We can talk after your father goes.”
”The three of us for breakfast? After that scene? Just shoot me now.”
”I'm going home for breakfast,” my father said, making us both jump. He looked sloppier than I'd ever seen. Wet hair, barely combed, b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt unb.u.t.toned, one s.h.i.+rt tail in, one out.
Aunt Fiona giggled.
”What?” my father barked.
She winked. ”That's a great look on you. Fetching.”
”Hey,” my father snapped. ”I'm trying to convince the kid of our innocence, here.”
”I'm not a kid, and I'm not innocent. I don't know why you should be. I'll just stay the h.e.l.l away from the two of you first thing in the morning.”
My father growled, a bit like a pirate. ”You stay with her tonight, Madeira.”
”How about she stays with us tonight?”
”Her name is Fiona,” she said, hands on hips.
My father shook his head and opened her front door. ”How did my car get here?”
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