Caveat Emptor and Other Stories Page 3

  Anne looked at the dressing-room door in one corner of the room. “Will he be back?” she asked Sylvia.

  “Probably. I could see you liked what you saw, Anne. You’d better not tell Paul too much about this when he gets home Sunday. He may not approve of his wife kissing a male stripper.”

  Marjorie sighed. “What was it like, Anne?”

  “Just a kiss.” But such a kiss. Soft lips and a faint hint of after-shave. A kiss more innocent than a high-school sweetheart’s, but promising more than any boy could offer. A cherub without a robe. Every mother’s son, every woman’s lover. The ache increased until she felt as if she might slip into a fantasy of such erotic delight that she would never willingly return.

  “Looks like our Annie is in love,” Sylvia said. She pulled out another dollar bill and waved it over Marjorie’s head. “Let’s see if we can share the good fortune.”

  While Marjorie laughingly protested and tried to hide, Anne forced herself to watch the man on stage, who was nearing the same state of undress his predecessor had achieved. It did nothing to distract her from the memory of the kiss. She was startled when a waiter tapped her on the shoulder and handed her a folded note. He nodded in the direction of the dressing-room door and left.

  Would she wait for “D” after the show?

  There was a bit more, but she could hardly see the written letters. Would she? Did she dare? Anne Carter, wife of a lawyer, respected librarian at the neighborhood elementary school, gracious hostess for countless cocktail parties and elegant buffets designed to charm Paul’s clients, was hardly the sort to hang around stage doors for male … dancers, dimples or not. She had never … done such a thing. It was … unthinkable. She simply … couldn’t.

  Men continued to dance on the stage. Dollars were waved; women were kissed and convinced not to pull too strenuously on the elastic straps that kept the show marginally legal.

  Anne watched it all, sipping beer that had no taste, clapping to music that had no beat, hearing catcalls that had no meaning. Could she be in the blond man’s arms while her husband and his mistress unwittingly poisoned themselves with the bottle she had left at the cabin?

  Dick appeared during the second half of the show, this time dressed in tight pants and a shirt with flowing sleeves. As he danced at the table next to hers, Anne caught his questioning smile. She nodded. There really was no choice.

  She survived the rest of the show, counting the minutes until the room would clear and he would emerge from the dressing room. At last, after a finale of flesh, the emcee thanked the crowd and told them when his show would return to the Happy Hour Saloon. Once the stage was empty, most of the women started for the exits, babbling excitedly about the relative merits of each performer.

  “Hank’s going to kill me,” Marjorie said happily, then pulled herself out of her chair and left.

  Anne glanced at Sylvia. “Don’t you have a date?” she asked. At a cabin, with a bottle of scotch and a husband who had strayed too far to ever merit forgiveness. She wanted it to be done.

  “I do, and here he comes,” Sylvia said, putting her cigarette case in her purse. “But what about you? This is hardly the place for librarians to sit alone and drink beer.”

  “He’s here?” He couldn’t be here—he was at the cabin.

  Sylvia waved to a man waiting near the door. “My accountant, actually. I’ve been after him since April, because he saved me an absolute fortune on my taxes this year. If he can get me a refund next year, I may break down and marry him.”

  “Your accountant?”

  “Somebody has to do my taxes. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I thought—I thought you and Paul—” Anne gasped through a suddenly constricted throat.

  “Not me, Annie. Your husband’s attractive, but he’s more interested in the younger set. Or those who teach them.” Sylvia looked at the chair beside her, where Bitsy had sat until she had made the indignant exit. “You’d better ask Paul about his late nights at the office. I didn’t want to say anything, but Bitsy’s been awfully concerned the last few months about your schedule.”

  “Bitsy?” All she could manage was a croak. It couldn’t be; the suicide note named Sylvia—not Bitsy. Her literary masterpiece would fool no one, not with the wrong name. The police would realize Paul hadn’t written it. They would show it to her, ask her if she had been to the cabin lately, demand to know if she had taken barbiturates from Sylvia’s purse and left the empty vial under the note in the night table drawer. She hadn’t worried about fingerprints, or mud on her tires, or any such trivial details. The investigation wouldn’t have gone that far. The plan was too good.

  She searched wildly for a way to prove Sylvia wrong, to catch her in some horridly devious lie. “But you had dinner with him!”

  “He wanted to ask me how I thought you’d react to a divorce,” Sylvia said gently. “He made me swear not to mention it to you. It’s been Bitsy all along.”

  “No, it can’t be. It can’t be Bitsy.” She rubbed her face, unable to believe it. “You’re lying.”

  “Sorry to be the one to tell you,” Sylvia said as she stood up. “I have to run; my gentleman friend’s waiting to hear about the strippers. Don’t stay here too long.”

  As Sylvia left, Anne felt her stomach grow cold with fear. Bitsy had left more than an hour ago, no doubt on her way to the rendezvous Anne herself had suggested. There was no way to telephone Paul, to tell him that the scotch was filled with barbiturates, that she would no longer contest a divorce if he would quietly pour the bottle down the drain and tear up the damning suicide note.

  Perhaps she could drive up there in time to stop them from consuming too much of the scotch. The two wouldn’t start on the bottle immediately. Surely they’d spend a few minutes greeting each other, and Bitsy would relish telling Paul all the details of the vulgarity to which she’d been exposed. Tell him how his wife had actually kissed a stripper. Offer righteous comments about the cheapness of the bar and the ill-bred behavior of the spectators.

  Yes, she had time to rush to the cabin and prevent the scotch from carrying out its lethal assignment. If she left at once. She grabbed her purse and shoved back her chair. She had enough gas in her car; the route to the cabin was still fresh in her mind. She’d have to confront the two and admit what she’d done, but maybe—

  “I’m glad you waited for me,” a voice murmured in her ear. A hand touched her elbow and pulled her back down to her chair. “You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen, with your lovely dark hair and little-girl eyes.”

  “I—I have to leave. Now.”

  His hand tightened around her elbow, sending a flow of electricity up her arm. As disappointment crossed his face, she said, “An errand has come up, something I really and truly have to do. I’m sorry. I’d like to stay for a drink, but I have to go. Right now. There isn’t much time. I’m sorry.”

  “We leave in the morning and won’t be through here for at least six months,” he said with a sigh, his blue eyes lowered. “I was very excited about getting to know you, if only for one night. I couldn’t believe you’d actually waited for me, but I suppose you’ve changed your mind.” He looked up with a wistful smile. “I wanted to make you happy this one night.”

  Anne took a deep breath as she studied the sweep of his eyelashes, the faint frown that managed to provoke his dimples, the haze of moisture on his neck from a hurried shower. She knew what his shirt and jeans covered, and she could envision what the khaki triangle had hidden. This—or a frantic drive down a dark, rutted road to the cabin to save two treacherous people from a fate they well deserved?

  As the lights swept across the room, her face changed from red to blue to green. “The errand’s not all that important,” she said in a soft, slow voice.

  The Maggody Files: Death in Bloom

  “The thing is,” Ruby Bee announced before Estelle could once again start in squawking like a bluejay, which, for the record, she’d been doing for the last ten minutes,
give or take, “Beryl makes superior apple pies. I’m thinking she might be inclined to share her secret. That’s why we’re doing this.”

  Estelle adjusted the rearview mirror and made sure her beehive of red hair was securely pinned and ready to withstand anything short of hurricane-strength winds. “I still don’t see why the both of us should close up shop and go over to drink coffee, eat a piece of pie, and be so bored we’re gonna wish we’d joined a book club. Beryl’s pies take the blue ribbon every year at the county fair. That doesn’t mean I want to spend an hour admiring her begonias and zucchinis.”

  Ruby Bee sighed as she drove up County 103. “Did you hear what I said, Estelle? Beryl’s apple pies have a certain something. I’ve been trying to figure out for most of thirty years what her secret is. Times I think it’s an extra dash of nutmeg or cinnamon, and then I think it must be ginger. I realize this sounds odd, but there are nights I toss and turn until dawn.”

  “Odd,” Estelle echoed in a voice meant to irritate Ruby Bee, which it most certainly did. “You’re saying you can’t sleep on account of Beryl Blanchard winning the blue ribbon at the county fair every year on account of ginger? I spend a lot more hours worrying if the IRS will come after me—or if a slobbering serial killer will bust into my house.”

  Ruby Bee turned up the gravel driveway to Beryl’s house. “I suspect you’re losing sleep over something less likely than Idalupino Buchanon’s face appearing on the cover of People magazine. We’re gonna have pie and coffee, spend a few minutes with Buck, and dutifully admire the garden. If Beryl wants to give me her secret recipe, so be it. If not, no one has yet dared to criticize the apple pie I serve at the bar and grill.”

  “Not if they want to live to see the dawning of another day,” Estelle muttered, then looked at the weedy pasture as Ruby Bee’s car bounced up the rutted driveway. The house was, at best, serviceable. The garden, on the other hand, was enough to suck the breath out of any soul’s body. Yellows and reds and fuchsias and oranges and pinks and purples—every glorious color on the spectrum—exploded from all sides. Blooms stretched to meet the sun; others cascaded like iridescent waterfalls.

  “You got to admit,” Ruby Bee said solemnly, “that this is something. Beryl may not be on the top of my list of favorite people, but you’d almost think she gets seed catalogs direct from the Garden of Eden.”

  “Then we’d better keep an eye out for the serpent,” Estelle said as she unbuckled her seat belt.

  Ruby Bee frowned but held her peace as they got out of the car. Maggody was a quiet little town most of the time, although things seemed to keep happening. Today, however, held no undertones of menace. Arly, who just happened to be the chief of police as well as Ruby Bee’s daughter, had last been seen napping at her desk at the two-room police department, most likely dreaming of an escape to a somewhat more invigorating lifestyle that precluded moonshiners and dim-witted locals. There were no banks in Maggody, so the odds of a robbery-in-progress were limited. Anyone who imprudently ran the sole stoplight was in luck for the next hour or so.

  “Ruby Bee, Estelle!” shrieked Beryl as she arose from a bed of exceedingly tall purple perennials. “I am delighted that you came! This is such a treat for me. So few people drop by these days. Buck and Sylvie are as excited as I am.”

  Ruby Bee pasted on a smile. “You know I’m always in the mood for pie and coffee. How’s Buck doing?”

  Beryl, whose gray hair held a tint of the same purple as the flowers surrounding her, wiped her face on her shirt cuff, leaving a smudge of dirt on her otherwise properly schoolmarmish features. “The wheelchair’s not been easy for him, but he knows he has to be careful. He gets all these crazy ideas about European tours and African safaris and how we can travel to all these places like he never had the heart surgery. Sylvie’s forever bringing home brochures about cruises and the like. Silliness! You name another place on earth more beautiful than where we’re standing.” She spread her arms as if embracing nature in its entirety. “What more could anyone want?”

  “Something more exciting than Maggody,” Buck said as he wheeled onto the porch. “I just want to go while we can. A few years from now, maybe I’ll be content to sit here, watching the turkey vultures circle in on me. I was in the United States Navy, as you ladies must know. We had shore leave in Athens and Naples and a whole lot of fascinating places. I keep trying to persuade Beryl here to take a gander at them while we can. I drank a little ouzo in my time, I did, and climbed to the very rim of Vesuvius. One night when I was on the Isle of Capri—”

  “We don’t have any reason to travel,” Beryl cut in. “We’ve got a vegetable garden, an orchard ripe with peaches and apples, and flowers that could dazzle a blind man. Why would I want to go to some foreign place where I’m likely to get a disease? Home is where you get meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and apple pie.”

  Buck made a gesture that indicated he’d heard the argument more times than he could count. “Just thought I’d mention it,” he said darkly as he spun around and went inside.

  “He doing okay otherwise?” asked Ruby Bee.

  Beryl shrugged as she picked up a muddy trowel and stacked together several empty plastic pots. “He’d do better if he did away with all his foolish ideas about traveling. Taking care of the property is a full-time job, what with planting in the spring, tending in the summer, harvesting in the fall, and pruning and planning in the winter. It’s not like Sylvie could step in for even a week or two. I’d be terrified that she’d make such a mess of everything that it’d take me two or three years to recover.”

  “I just love your hollyhocks,” Estelle said tactfully.

  “Me, too,” Beryl said. “Now let’s go inside for pie and coffee, and then we’ll have a nice stroll. I’m particularly pleased with the dianthus along the back fence. It has a wonderful cinnamon scent.”

  Ruby Bee smiled with all the subtlety of a fox teetering on the henhouse roof. “Speaking of cinnamon, Beryl …”

  They went into the house. The living room was dark and sparse, what with the drapes drawn and the wood floor unadorned. The obligatory crocheted doilies were spread across the arms of the sofa. Photographs of dyspeptic ancestors glowered from the walls. Tables that might have held vases of nature’s glories were bare, with the exception of the odd crystal dish that most likely had arrived as a wedding present and had never since held so much as a mint. The only book in sight was a family Bible.

  “Sylvie!” Beryl called as they went down the hall. “We have company. I hope you’re not sulking in your room.” She lowered her voice and looked back at Ruby Bee and Estelle. “Sylvie’s not always fit for company. She did insist on baking the apple pie this morning, though.”

  The baker under discussion trudged into the kitchen. She was thick, pale, somewhat sallow, and clearly unhappy. “You didn’t mention company, Ma.”

  Ruby Bee managed a smile. “And how are you doing these days, Sylvie? Still attending the community college in Farberville?”

  “No,” Sylvie muttered. “I did for a year, but now I’m here, taking care of things. Maybe down the road I can get some kind of degree.” She put on an apron and began to shove pots and pans into the gray dishwasher in the sink. “How’s Arly doing?”

  “Real fine,” Ruby Bee said, looking at Estelle for help. A bullfrog caught in a spotlight might have appeared less panicky.

  “Yeah, real fine,” said Estelle. “Why, Arly’s just happy as a hog in a wallow. I’m sure she’d like to be out and about with men of an acceptable persuasion, but she’s willing to settle for a grilled cheese sandwich and happy hour at the bar and grill. How about you, Sylvie? You ever think about coming by for a beer? Things start jumping on Friday afternoons.”

  Rather than responding, Sylvie grimly set a pie on the dinette. “Coffee’ll be ready in a minute,” she said, then disappeared down the hallway.

  Beryl sighed. “I just don’t know what to do with that girl. I’ve made it clear she can take a class or two at the communit
y college, as long as she can work around Buck’s needs. I’m just not strong enough to deal with him. I can’t help him in or out of his chair, or see to his basic needs in certain matters. I want you to know I’ve tried, Ruby Bee and Estelle; the spirit is willing, but …”

  “How about I pour the coffee?” Ruby Bee said. She waited until Beryl nodded, then found cups and saucers in a cabinet and filled each cup. “Shall I cut the pie?”

  Beryl sighed. “These days, the complaints are enough to wear me out. Sylvie acts like we should find a way to pay a private nurse to see to Buck, but we can’t. He spends his days whining about trips to foreign places. He needs the wheelchair, for pity’s sake. I can’t see myself lugging it up the gangplank of a ship or through the streets of some nasty place like Rome. I’ve been told that men”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“urinate in the streets. Can you imagine?”

  “What about a cruise?” said Estelle as she accepted a plate from Ruby Bee. “Seems like there’d be one that caters to folks with disabilities. If Sylvie went along, you could visit some exotic ports and Buck might feel better.”

  “Some of the brochures say they do,” Beryl said, “but most likely all they offer is wide bathroom doors. Besides, who’d look after my hybrid tea roses and prune the flowering crab apples? My garden means everything to me. I can’t leave it to amateurs.”

  Ruby Bee was trying to come up with a rebuttal as she took a bite of the blue-ribbon pie. It was not easy to swallow. “A bit tart,” she mumbled.

  “I’d say so!” Beryl banged down her fork. “Sylvie! You march yourself in here right now, young lady. Here I invited guests for a nice dessert! This pie could pucker a face inside out. I’m so embarrassed I could just crawl under the table. I would never have served this if …”

  Sylvie came into the kitchen. “Sorry, Mother. We ran out of sugar, and I thought I could adjust the recipe with honey. We’ve got some oatmeal cookies in the freezer. Maybe I can—”