Follow the Dotted Line (29 page)

“I think if we could demonstrate that each of these four men died while on vacation with Tilda in a foreign country and that she was the sole beneficiary of these deaths, the police or the feds or whomever would be forced to look into it.”

“Isn’t that still working backward from the criminal to the crime?” asked Harley, who was grasping this whole thing with unexpected clarity.

“Agreed,” Lorna said. “However, it’s still the only approach we’ve got. Even the police should agree that nobody has that many husbands die ‘accidentally’ while on vacation. Nobody.”

“So what would we need to do to find out how and where these guys died?” Andy asked.

“I guess we’d have to do what we did with Gus. Try to hunt down a family member, see if the guy owned any real estate, and then contact the county recorder where the property is located to see if Tilda was on the title. If she was and she filed a death certificate, then we contact the country that issued the death certificate to see what happened.”

“That’s a helluva lot of work,” Andy groaned.

Lorna nodded. “I know. But I don’t see any other way. Do you?”

Andy grimaced in a let’s-all-run-a-marathon sort of way. “Damn Mark! I can’t believe he’s making me go through all this. The guy’s made as big a mess of his death as he did of his life. This could take months.”

“I thought you thought Uncle Mark wasn’t dead yet,” Harley said, unable to mask his confusion under all that facial hair.

“Well, if he isn’t, I’ll be ready to kill him myself by the time this is over,” Andy snorted, making her sound way nastier than she felt about the situation. In point of fact, she wasn’t all that sure how she felt about the situation. As time went on, it was more and more likely that Mark really was dead. And somewhere deep down under the warm waters of denial, floated the icy truth: she already knew he was; she just couldn’t admit it yet. “Sorry. That was uncalled for. But this whole thing makes me so mad.”

The eyebrows perching pensively below the skullcap jumped plaintively.

“What?” Andy said, trying not to bark at him again.

“Nothing.”

“Come on, Harley. I’m not mad at you. This is married people’s baggage. And it’s all filled with sh—garbage. Go ahead. What did I say that upset you?”

“Nothing. Really. I was just wondering why we didn’t, you know, take the easy way.”

“The easy way?”

“It would sure save time.”

Now Andy was the one who was having trouble masking her confusion. “What are you talking about, Harley?”

“Tilda’s passport. Wouldn’t that have those stamps you get when you go someplace outside the country?”

“Passport stamps?” Andy repeated.

“Like on Rick Steves.”

“Oh, my god,” she gasped. “You watch PBS?”

He was about to answer but never got the chance.

“Tilda’s passport,” Lorna crooned, her own eyebrows shooting nearly to her hairline. “Of course! We could figure out exactly where she’s been traveling by checking her passport stamps!” Feeling an unanticipated surge of adrenaline, the kind that comes after you’re sure the game is over and then discover it isn’t—quite yet, Lorna sat up and blew a spontaneous kiss across the table to Harley. “One wonders what goes on inside that head of yours!” she marveled.

“No, one doesn’t,” Andy sniped.

Lorna pointed a finely filed nail at her friend. “Shut up, Andrea. And start thinking about how we can get ourselves back into that cabin in Big Bear this weekend.”

In the days that followed, two unrelated yet significant events took unexpected turns and ultimately collided with one another. The first was Harley Davidson’s sudden illness. Suffering from migrating body aches and projectile vomiting, the boy was convinced he had contracted food poisoning from the stuffed cabbage. It made no difference that not one other person had reported getting sick that day or that the restaurant had an ‘A’ rating from the city health department; Harley was convinced the Jewish delicatessen had brought him to his first and only near-death experience. He reacted by shaving his beard (which was a repository for everything that came out of his mouth) and removing his skullcap, even during daylight hours. And thus appeared the initial cracks in his newly established spiritual foundation.

The second event was an impromptu family meeting at Mitch’s house, spurred by a phone call to his mother announcing he had set a date for Mark’s funeral.

“You what?” Andy asked.

“I have a date. Just come over on Friday after work, and we’ll talk about it,” Mitch said. “Berkeley will be here for the weekend.”

Berkeley was Mitch’s daughter from a marriage that never quite happened nearly twenty years ago. By avoiding matrimony and with it cohabitation, Mitch and Berkeley’s mother, Sara, had remained close friends, and Berkeley had been spared a childhood of miserable parents.

“You know, Mitch, I’m still working on finding out more about what happened to your dad,” she ventured.

“Oh, right. How’s that coming, by the way?”

Candor was a waste of time. If she told him about the upcoming break-in at the cabin in Big Bear this weekend, not to mention the previous one, he’d have his lawyer drawing up commitment papers before she hung up.

“Nothing definite to report, unfortunately,” she equivocated. “Still trying to put the pieces together about exactly what happened.”

“But Dad is dead, right?”

“Well, that’s my concern, Mitch. Probably.” She thought about it. “Most likely,” she amended. Then just to be fair, she added, “At least, I can’t find any evidence he’s alive. And all Tilda’s other husbands most definitely preceded him in death. And probably not by natural causes.”

“Oh, you know that for sure now?” said Mitch, a little taken aback. “I thought the Black Widow thing was just exuberant speculation on your part.”

“Are you being snide?”

“No. I’m just asking if you found some kind of proof. Because, if you did, you damn well better call the police, Mom. You’re not doing anything dangerous, are you?”

Redirection was a family art, and she rendered it as well as any of her children. “It’s all about following the paper trail,” she half-lied. “I promise I will call the police once I have something definite. In the meantime, I just thought you might like to wait and see what I come up with before we have the memorial service.”

“Sorry, but if we’re going to make this funeral happen, it has to be now or never. Or the whole idea will just slip away. We’ve got a window of opportunity, Mom, and I say we take it.”

“What window?”

“I’ll tell you Friday. Okay?”

Andy surrendered. “Okay. I’ll be there.”

“By the way, is Harley ambulatory yet?”

“He’s lost ten pounds. But, yes, he’s out of bed and walking around.”

“Did he put his beanie back on?”

“Not yet.”

“Are you sure this isn’t another crisis of faith?”

“God only knows, Mitch. I can’t keep track.”

Andy knew her son was used to firing off questions, as well as commands, to those in his employ, but it exasperated the hell out of her.

“What’s this about, Mitchell?”

“Never mind. Just bring him along.”

“I don’t want to bring him along. Why should I?”

“Melissa wants to talk to him.”

“Why?”

“Stop firing questions at me, Mother. It annoys the hell out of me. See you Friday.”

As soon as Mitch hung up, Andy’s phone re-upped. Good, she thought. His most prompt apology ever!

“Hello?”

“Mom?”

It was Ian’s voice, as tentative as Mitch’s was cocksure.

“Hi, honey. How are you?”

“Good. Good. Fine. And you?”

“Great.”

“I’m between sets, but I wanted to give you a quick call to see if it’s okay to bring Annabelle with me.”

Not sure what he meant, but feeling she should, she fished, “With you?”

“To the funeral.”

“Ah, hah,” she aspirated, involuntarily. “Mitch has told you his plan.”

“Oh,” Ian whispered. “He hasn’t told you?”

“Not in detail.” This awkwardness was Mitch’s fault, not Ian’s, so Andy moved to put an end to it. “Of course you should bring Annabelle. We’d all love to meet her. Are you two that serious?”

Long pause. Dumb question. He wasn’t ready for it. She tried again. “So tell me how the story went when you told her.”

Another pause.

“I mean, the story about Dad and Tilda, remember? You wanted to tell her something funny because you said her family stories were so funny.”

“Oh, yeah! She loved it. She really cracked up. I guess she’s heard a couple other black widow stories at the office but nothing with a burger box,” Ian said.

“Really?” said Andy, who couldn’t imagine a group of government geeks getting off on black widow stories.

“So has she found a way for you to avoid paying all those back taxes?”

The frost on the ensuing silence made Andy’s ear hurt; she’d managed to say something stupid again!

“Annabelle would never do that, Mother,” he said, protectively. “She’s a real professional.”

The reproach sounded almost chivalrous coming from her unassertive son. Who knew that a relationship with an auditor could be so transformative? “Of course she is, Ian. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. And absolutely, bring her to the memorial service.”

“Thanks, Mom,” he told her by way of a rapprochement. Then he made one of those nervous, throat-clearing noises and added dramatically, “You won’t regret this.”

Not sure she had heard him right, Andy looked at her phone, then put it back to her ear. “That’s a peculiar thing to say, Ian.”

“No, it’s not,” he said. She detected more than a little indignation.

Where did that come from, she wondered. “I mean, why would I regret meeting your girlfriend?” she asked.

“Because you’re always meeting someone’s girlfriend.”

Okay, now he was sounding downright snippy. Evidently, this was leading somewhere, but Ian’s route to anything important was often so circuitous it was difficult to follow. “Are you talking about Mitch’s girlfriend?” she asked, taking a stab at the only target that popped to mind.

“Girlfriends, Mom. He brings home a lot. I don’t.”

“Umm. I guess that’s true.” Hell, that had been true for years. Why was he bringing it up now?

“Soooo . . .” Andy let the word hang out there long and loose, hoping he’d pick it up so she didn’t have to.

“So I just want you to know, I’m not wasting your time.”

Oh my god, she thought darkly, why don’t I just hang up and let him call back in a year or two, when he’s ready to get to the point? “Ian,” she said with far more tenderness than she was feeling, “you seem to be angry about something.”

“I am not angry, Mom.”

“Wrong word. Let me try again. You seem to be more serious than usual.”

“I am. I am very serious. We’re talking about a memorial service here.”

“Yes. Yes, we are. And?”

“And you don’t bring just anyone to a memorial service, Mother,” he pointed out. “Do you?” Those final syllables shot across the cellular signal with more force than any two words her youngest had uttered since childhood.

“Oh!” said Andy, finally getting it. “Are you trying to tell me she’s—”

Ian rarely interrupted anyone. He had a hard enough time completing his own thoughts. But this was a sentence he clearly wanted to finish for himself. “She’s the one, Mom,” he cut in. “Annabelle is definitely the one.”

Take a Load off Fanny

Never one to spare the food and spoil the chance to have a really good meal, Mitch ordered Indian takeout in excessive amounts and instructed his guests to gather round the pool with their curry-laden plates. Berkeley, who had all of her father’s smarts and none of his alpha-male combativeness, chatted amiably with everyone present, including her grandmother. It was a remarkable display of social graces by someone four years younger than Harley. Watching Berkeley in action, Andy hoped her nephew would pick up a few pointers. Then she noticed that Harley was so smitten by Melissa—distractingly dressed in leopard leggings and a denim miniskirt this evening—he was probably destined to remain graceless forever.

Oddly, there was no mention of the funeral at dinner, but as soon as the biodegradable cartons were cleared, Mitch suggested he and his mother retire to smoke cigars, while everyone else did the dishes. Vaguely, Andy felt abandoned by the others, as if she had to face the lion in his den all by herself. She knew, as they all did, that Mitch would probably get whatever he wanted tonight because the sheer force of his wanting it would render any resistance, including his mother’s, absolutely exhausting.

“Labor Day,” Mitch began.

“Labor Day? But I’m not sure I can confirm your dad is, you know, dead by then,” Andy fumbled.

“I thought you said you had no reason to believe otherwise.”

“I don’t.”

“Don’t you think if he were still above ground, you would have found him in Texas?”

“Probably.”

“And you didn’t, did you?”

“No.”

“Not a sign of him anywhere, right? Accounts closed. Phone terminated. Right?”

“Right.”

“But you’re still searching for …” Tilting his head to one side, he squinted, as if he couldn’t quite get his mother in focus. “What, exactly, are you searching for, Mom?”

“You know.”

“No, really. I don’t.”

“I’m searching for the truth, Mitch.”

She saw the cynicism creep into this smile. “Um hum. And how long do you imagine this is going to take?” he asked.

She was finding it harder and harder to defend her reluctance to have the service.

“Tell me, Mom, why do you have to make this so hard?”

“I’m sorry, Mitch. Believe me, that’s really not my intention.”

“Then would it really be so bad if we just go ahead and do this? Because as it turns out, Ian’s going to be in town playing at the Greek Theater on Labor Day. And that also works for Sam and Lil.”

“You talked to the girls already?” Andy managed, weakly.

“I didn’t want to waste your time, if we couldn’t all be here,” he said, “so I scoped things out. Everybody can make it. Long weekend. No school in Idaho, and Sam’s happy to take the kids out of nursery.”