Electric Blue (25 page)

“I’d like to talk to someone there,” Jazz said, taking me by surprise. “Will you go with me?”

“Back to River Shores?” He nodded. I’d opened the floodgates, apparently. Now he wanted to know everything there was to know about his mother and the secrets surrounding her. “Sure.” Jazz didn’t hear my lack of enthusiasm or chose to ignore it.

As we were getting ready to enter the house, Logan came out. He saw me with his father and his face darkened. “I’m not sure I’m going to let you into
my
house,” he said, reaching for humor but coming off sounding bratty and spoiled.

“Logan.” Jazz gazed at him as if he’d never seen him before.

Logan was too young to have the good sense to quit before he made things worse. “Well, it’s mine, isn’t it? Nana said so.”

Jazz said to me, “Nana told him last Christmas that he was her heir. It’s not really true.”

“Yes, it is. I’m her favorite,” Logan insisted. “She’s leaving everything to me. She said so.”

“You bothered her with this?” For the first time I could tell Jazz was growing angry with him. Personally, I thought it was high time the kid was taken down a peg or two.

“Nah. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her. They’re all going in and out of her room. ‘Nana, would you like some tea? Can I get you anything? Let me get you a blanket. Can I kiss your butt?’” Logan snorted in disgust.

“Stop being rude and give Nana some space.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. You sound like all the rest of them.” He flounced off, heading around the side of the building, toward the front of the house.

Thinking about Orchid, I asked, “Does Nana ever talk about the playhouse?”

Jazz gazed at me oddly. “Why?”

“Someone said she seemed haunted by it.” I wasn’t going to invoke Eileen’s name as anything about her seemed to be dismissed.

“Haunted by it,” he repeated. “That’s one way to put it, I guess. Sometimes she says things about it.”

“What kind of things?”

“I don’t know. I can’t quite remember. Maybe you should ask James.”

“Why James?”

He lifted his hands in a kind of surrender. “It just seems like you should.”

We entered the house. Music was emanating from the main salon, a Frank Sinatra song. It was just ending as we joined the others and another one was beginning: “High Hopes.” We were apparently listening to a CD compilation of Sinatra favorites. I guessed he was a favorite of Nana’s.

The family was there in force, except for Orchid herself. Garrett explained that his mother was napping, that they were planning to wake her soon but that they were all so relieved that she was fine that they’d started the party early. There was a crystal decanter of port or sherry on the coffee table. Upon seeing me, Dahlia hurried to pour me a demi-glass. Her eyes were bright, and I wondered if she’d been imbibing heavily. I shuddered at the thought of even putting my lips to the rim. There was no way I was ready for any alcohol, after praying to the porcelain god early this morning, but I accepted the glass just to hold. Behind Dahlia, Satin moved over and poured herself a refill. There was something secretive in her movements and I realized she was hoping the family’s attention would stay on Jazz and me and no one would notice.

Cammie was sans Rosalie, who was also napping. “She’s sleeping too late, and she’ll be a bear when she wakes up, but what are you going to do?” She shrugged, took a sip of her drink and made a face. “Port. Yuck.” She set the glass on the coffee table.

“Reyna’s making Mother’s favorite,” Garrett said. “Southern fried chicken with biscuits and gravy. Personally, I’d rather have a steak, but I guess I’ll survive.” This was his little joke. I was kind of surprised he had any sense of humor at all.

James said, “Maybe we should wake her.”

Satin floated by and Cammie said, “Yeah, before Mom gets to the bottom of the bottle.” Satin flushed and sank into a chair. “Did you think I didn’t see you pick up my glass?” Cammie asked.

“Leave your mother alone,” Garrett ordered.

Benjamin viewed them with a jaundiced eye. He refilled his own glass as did Roderick. Father and son clinked rims. Dahlia gazed at Benjamin with a mixture of motherly love and possessiveness.

Jazz said, “I’ll go get Nana.”

“I’ll come with you,” I said, setting down my untouched drink. I glanced toward Satin, whose eyes were focused on my glass.

I was following Jazz upstairs when he suddenly stopped at the landing, turned around and looked down at me. “Let’s not stay for dinner,” he suggested. “After we take Nana downstairs and hang around for a little bit, I want us to go out somewhere. Just you and I. We can celebrate together. How does that sound?”

“Great.”

We smiled at each other and then Jazz pulled me close and pressed his lips to mine. He took me completely by surprise, and therefore I was a little slow to get into the moment. I had to force myself to relax, but I managed. As kisses go, it wasn’t bad: soft and searching, full of the promise of something deeper, more dangerous. I responded carefully. Jazz took his time but in my head I kept worrying what would happen if any of his family suddenly appeared. By the time he released me I needed to suck in a deep breath.

“Whew.” I smiled. “That was interesting timing.”

He laughed. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but somehow it never seemed like it was going to work.” At that moment, the back door opened and Logan entered. He glanced up at us. Whatever he saw caused a stunned look to cross his face. Jazz moved away from me. “I’d better go check with him. He can be so sensitive.”

I nodded. Yeah. About as sensitive as a Paloma bull.

“Go on ahead,” Jazz said. “I’ll be right there. Nana will be glad it’s you.”

I wasn’t even sure Nana knew my name wasn’t Eileen. But I sure as hell didn’t want to be with Jazz when he had a powwow with Logan about what he may, or may not, have seen us doing on the landing.

I started thinking about Binkster as I walked toward Nana’s double doors. I couldn’t get my mind off my dog for long. I wouldn’t mind getting something going with Jazz, but I was currently more interested in Binks’s welfare than about anything else. This could be looked at as a flaw on my part, but I didn’t care. Jazz was an iffy proposition; The Binkster was a member of my family.

I knocked, but Orchid didn’t immediately invite me inside. I waited a couple of seconds, knocked again, and called, “Nana?” in a tentative voice I despised. I was going to have to give up and just call her Orchid, no matter what she wanted. I just couldn’t do it. Nana was just too uncomfortable and rang false.

When there was still no response I tested the knob. I half-expected them to have locked her in now, after her grand escape, but I guess they felt they were all on alert now, all in the house, all aware of the exits.

The door opened and I stepped inside.

For a nanosecond I didn’t notice anything off. Then my eye jumped to the mantel. A smear of blood. Then to the hearth. Orchid lay on her side in a heap, blood pooling beneath her left temple.

I stumbled forward and saw that her eyes were open and staring. I sucked in a startled breath.

Those electric blue eyes were sightless now. In disbelief I realized Orchid Candlestone Purcell was dead.

F
or the longest of moments I stood motionless, in a strange state of calm. I thought about checking Orchid’s pulse. I’d never been faced with a dead body outside the trappings of a funeral home or church and it was the oddest feeling. Birth seems so right and natural; death feels like a cheat.

But I didn’t check her pulse. I knew she was dead. Even if she’d risen up and started talking to me I would have told myself I was dreaming and known it was true. That’s how sure I was, and as it turned out, I was right.

Taking a deep breath, I turned on my heel and left the room. I walked right down the stairs and across the entry hall to the salon. Jazz was still with Logan somewhere, I presumed, because he wasn’t with the rest of the family.

Garrett frowned and said, “I thought you were getting Mother? Where is she? Is she still napping?”

A whole lot of sick answers whirled around in my head on that one. In fact a little burble of hysteria had formed in my throat. I’d often heard stress makes people laugh inappropriately. That’s exactly what I wanted to do, laugh and laugh and laugh. I just managed to hold myself back.

“What’s the matter?” Benjamin asked, searching my face. The guy was intuitive in a way the rest of his family wasn’t.

“It’s Orchid. She’s…dead.”

They collectively stared at me. “Dead…?” Roderick repeated. He looked at James, as if for confirmation.

I gathered my wits with an effort. “It looks like she fell against the mantel. She’s lying on the floor.”

“Is this a joke?” Garrett demanded.

“No.”

Their faces reacted with shock. James declared fiercely, “She’s not dead. If she’s fallen, she could be injured!”

As if there were some off-camera signal, they suddenly surged as one toward the door. I was the rock in the current as they swarmed past me. As soon as I was alone I went straight for the inch of port in the bottle, looked around for a cup, realized I was out of luck, then simply tipped the bottle back and gulped it down. I didn’t care if my stomach reacted now. I needed something.

Tears formed in the corners of my eyes and my nose stung, but the stuff did the trick. As soon as I was finished I felt stronger. Hair of the dog…time immemorial hangover cure and antidote for shock.

I heard voices in the hall: Logan and Jazz. They entered the salon and stopped short. “Where is everybody?” Logan asked.

“Where’s Nana?” Jazz followed up instantly. Then, “Is something wrong?”

“It’s Orchid…” We heard noises from upstairs. Raised voices. Logan turned and headed toward the commotion.

“Don’t,” I said, reaching a hand toward him. He hesitated, looking at me askance. Jazz grabbed my forearms and searched my face.

“Jane, what’s wrong?” he asked.

“Jazz, she’s dead. Orchid’s dead. It looks like she fell against the mantel. Hit her head. Maybe it was an accident.”

“
Maybe
it was an accident?” He looked shell-shocked. “Nana?”

“I don’t know how it happened.”

“Stay here,” he ordered, and he hurried out of the room at a half-run to join his family upstairs, Logan on his heels.

I sat down hard in one of the chairs. I understood that I was in a mild state of shock, but it didn’t help me pull myself together. I could feel a sense of guilt creeping in, as if Orchid’s death were somehow my fault. Irrational, yes, but I couldn’t shake it. What I wanted most in the world at that moment was to crawl beneath the covers of my bed, with my dog, and sleep for a week.

I wondered if they had any more port.

It could have been ten minutes, it could have been two hours, but in that weird interim while the Purcells dealt with the immediacy of Orchid’s death, William DeForest opened the back door and announced his arrival. I turned toward the sound, waiting for him to appear in the open doorway of the salon. My first thought was: So they did invite him. My second: The old bastard kept her from spending some last precious few hours with her family.

This less than charitable conclusion couldn’t be dislodged. I was angry with him. When William hesitated in the doorway, my lip curled. His natty gray slacks, white shirt, red bow tie and suspenders irked me. He was clearly puzzled at finding only me. “What’s going on?” he asked, looking behind him as if the Purcells were hiding just out of sight.

Injustice fueled me. Later, I would wonder if I’d taken temporary leave of my sanity, but in that moment I zeroed in on William like a tracking missile. I said, in a conversational tone, “What the hell were you thinking, keeping Orchid from her family? You knew she was having cognitive problems. You call yourself her friend. But it’s your fault she was missing these past few days. You did that. Nobody else.”

His look of surprise was almost comical. “Where is everyone? Am I late?”

“All your little secrets…all your machinations…what did it get you? Nobody trusts you. And what were all those little comments about the Purcells, implying that you knew all the secrets. Blah, blah, blah.” I scowled at him. “You’re not a friend of theirs. You never were.”

William did not know what to make of me. I was operating outside the limits of good taste and acceptable social behavior. He eyed me critically. “Are you drunk?”

“Orchid’s gone,” I said, my fury dissipating as fast as it had risen. “She’s dead.”

He blinked several times. I was spent. Even more bushed than before. I didn’t need port; I needed a bed.

He gulped. “What are you saying? What are you saying?”

Footsteps descended the stairs. I was glad. Let the Purcells deal with him. Let them explain it.

Dahlia entered first, her face blotchy, her eyes red. One look at her and William turned ashen. Stunned, he stared, nearly collapsing, then he headed for the stairs on wobbly legs. I should have felt sorry for him, but I didn’t. I knew it was a classic case of transference, but I didn’t care. I wanted to wring his lying, bow-tied neck. He wept as he climbed the steps and even that didn’t melt my ice cold heart.

Long hours passed before Jazz could take me home, hours while the Purcells digested the news and decided what action to take. A call was put through to 911, the police showed up, the EMTs arrived and Orchid’s body was taken away. Preliminary examination revealed what I’d already suspected: she hit her head on the mantel and fell to the floor. The head injury had probably caused internal bleeding in the brain, then death.

Once the body was removed and the authorities gone, Garrett had the bad taste to propose the idea of foul play. Cammie and Dahlia were horrified anyone could even think that was the case, but Garrett began trumpeting this idea as if it were fact. Satin kept her head bent and tried to become invisible. James stood by in silent, starey shock. Benjamin hung with Roderick, and they did find another bottle of port, which they kept out of Satin’s reach, by accident or design I couldn’t quite tell. For once Logan showed restraint. The shock of his great-grandmother’s death had deeply rattled him. He stood by Jazz, who kept his arm around his son’s shoulders.

I waited this out, staying in the background. My brain was too tired to think through the ramifications. The bottom line was Orchid was dead. The worry and fret about her health, mental acuity, and overall handling of the finances was now a moot point.

Eventually Jazz and I climbed into his BMW convertible and headed out. We were quiet on the drive to my place, neither of us having anything to say. When Jazz pulled up next to Dwayne’s truck and yanked on the emergency brake, he finally spoke. “God, I can’t believe she’s gone. She was my rock.”

I nodded.

“She was always championing me, and you know how much she loves—loved—Logan.” He swallowed hard. “I miss her already.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it.

Opening the passenger door, I stepped into a starless evening, leaning a moment on the car door to catch my bearings. I looked up at the night sky, then at my cottage. The air was distinctly chilly. I could see a bluish flickering light emanating through the slit that ran beneath the bottom of the living room blinds and the sill. Dwayne was probably lying on my couch, watching television.

“Jane?” I leaned down and peered in the window at Jazz. “That guy…your boss?”

“Dwayne Durbin.”

“Is he something more to you?”

“No.” I was positive. “He’s not so much my boss as my business partner.”

“Nothing more?”

“Nothing more.”

He half-smiled. “That’s the one good thing about today, then. You and me. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

I waved good-bye to Jazz then walked into my front room and greeted Dwayne with a bitten off, “Hi.” I wasn’t trying to be rude; I just didn’t want to go another round with him. I wanted whatever had happened between us to die a quick death.

Dwayne flicked me a look. “Hi.” He was lying on the sofa, one arm tucked under his head. Binkster was sitting with her back to the cushions, her front legs and head splayed on Dwayne’s flat stomach. The cone looked damn uncomfortable, and she held her stitched hind leg to one side as if it hurt, too.

“Binky,” I murmured, coming over to scratch behind her ears. I’d had a hard time calling her this at first. Too cutiepatootie. But now it sufficed perfectly as she twisted her head around to lick my fingers.

“She’s hungry,” Dwayne said on a yawn.

“I know. She’s always hungry.” My voice was full of love. Hearing it, I thought about the Purcells and how they looked at their various offspring. I had so much to tell Dwayne and I just didn’t know where to begin. Finally, I baldly came out with, “Orchid’s dead.”

“What?” Dwayne sat up in surprise and Binks shifted quickly.

The events of the night started to tumble out without any rhyme or reason. I needed Dwayne’s clear thinking and investigator’s mind. I didn’t want to worry about what last night had meant, if anything. I just wanted everything to be the way it had been between us. Dwayne listened in silence as I told him about finding Orchid and the Purcells’ varying reactions, then I backtracked and related my experiences at River Shores, trying not to leave out a single detail. Finally I ran down, finishing with the way I’d verbally attacked William when he’d walked through the salon door.

“I just wanted to kill him,” I admitted. “I was so mad.”

Dwayne snorted. “The seven stages of grief. Sounds like you skipped a few.”

“Grief? Shock, maybe. I barely knew the woman.”

“Yeah, well, you can’t get over thinking she was your responsibility.”

“Why does it always sound like you have all the answers? Why do you do that, Dwayne?”

My pique amused him. “I hear serious hostility, darlin’. You already attacked the poor old guy with the bow tie. Now you want to take a shot at me.”

“Poor old guy, my ass. And you don’t have all the answers. I’m beginning to realize that. You had me fooled for a while, but I know more now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” he marveled.

“You, Dwayne. You! I’m talking about the way you act. This kind of know-it-all male crap that’s covered up with the ‘aw, shucks, ma’am’ bullshit always coming out of your mouth. I’m not listening to it anymore. That’s what I’m saying. I’m not listening to it.”

“You’re just mad because I teased you this morning.”

“Y’see? I hate that, Dwayne. I hate it when you provide all the answers. You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.” I was firm, my jaw tight.

“I know you’re all worked up because you wanted to know if we slept together and I wouldn’t give you a straight answer. I know that you can’t decide whether you want it to be true or not. I know you’ve been thinking about it all day.”

“I have not!”

“Oh, yes, you have.” He climbed to his feet, settling Binkster onto the couch. She propped herself up on her front legs, her head turning from one to the other of us, as if she were watching a Ping-Pong match. “You’ve been wondering if we did the down and dirty together, and you’ve been pissed ’cause if we did, you can’t remember. And you want to remember.”

“You’re unbelievable,” I said uneasily. He was getting way too close to me. This was a new side of Dwayne I wasn’t sure I liked. Yes, I’d poked and prodded at him, but now I was wishing I’d left well enough alone.

“Well, let me tell you something to ease your mind: No. We didn’t do a damn thing together.”

“I was naked when I woke up.” I looked into his face, wondering why he seemed so different to me. It was scary and a little thrilling.
Don’t do this, Jane. Don’t find him attractive.

“’Cause I stripped you down. Not because I had designs on you, because there was blood all over your clothes.”

“What did you sleep in?” I asked, mouth dry, though I knew. I’d felt that bare leg.

“Not a damn thing.”

“And we didn’t have sex.”

“No.”

“Okay.” I didn’t mean to sound chastised, but I did. And a little disappointed, too.

“You wanna know why?”

“Because you knew I didn’t want to?”