Go, Ivy, Go! (21 page)

He was talking to one of the widow/divorcee types who seem drawn to him like teenagers to a rock star, but he excused himself and came over to me. “I’ve been on the internet all day. I think we need to take a trip,” he said in a low, almost conspiratorial whisper.

“A trip? Where?”

He didn’t have a chance to answer because Magnolia tapped him with her golden wand. She always does special outfits for her barbecue get-togethers, and she was in fairy godmother mode this evening, complete with glittery tiara and that wand. “There’s this girl over here who’s writing a novel – she says it’s over a thousand pages now! – and I told her you know all about these things.”

Mac rolled his eyes, but he followed her toward a young woman with spiky black hair, earrings that looked like nails jabbed through her ears, and tattoos covering her arms from wrists to shoulders. At our first meeting, Magnolia had thrown Mac and me together like tossed salad, but I guess she now considers us, if not welded at the hip, at least comfortably knit at the elbow. I hadn’t confided to her that our couple-hood has been unraveling ever since I decided to come back to Madison Street.

“Talk to you later,” Mac said over his shoulder to me, leaving me to wonder if this trip he had in mind was a jaunt to a new Chinese restaurant, or if it was some sneaky new plot to take me far away from Madison Street, maybe Missouri entirely.

The crowd in Magnolia’s back yard wasn’t as large as their gatherings used to be, but there were more people than I expected. Geoff’s barbecued chicken and burgers scented the air like a carnivore’s dream. I wandered around introducing myself to people, mostly renters. I asked if they’d known the “renter” in my house before she became the body in the bathtub. Most had already been interviewed by the police, but no one had ever exchanged more than a few words with her. There was plenty of sympathy about my burned motorhome, but I detoured answering questions about cause of the fire.

No one noticed my ankle decorations. Although, admittedly, they were inconspicuous compared to Tattooed Girl’s fully-covered arms. I thought about flinging a foot in the air to get mine out where they’d be more visible, or maybe even flashing my daisy-encircled belly button. But I didn’t do either, of course. Okay, call me boring, but I’m just not a foot-flinging or belly-button-flashing sort of person.

Then I spotted Ed and Marie Daggitt, the neighbors who used to raise such a great garden but whose house was empty now.

“It’s so good to see you!” Marie said as we hugged. “You just seemed to drop off the edge of the earth. Where in the world have you been all this time?”

“Oh, just traveling around. But it looks as if I won’t be doing that anymore.” I made a no-big-deal wave in the direction of the motorhome. It wasn’t visible from Magnolia’s back yard, but the Daggitts must have seen it from the street. “Will you be living here again?”

“We have an apartment in Kansas City now,” Ed said. “We just came to see what was going on with the house.”

“Renter problems?”

“No, we sold it. Just like a lot of others have done, to that company over in Illinois.”

“Radison Properties?”

“That’s the one. But we’ve been in touch with old Mrs. Cumberland . . . you remember her?”

I nodded.
Sweet elderly woman with a sweet little bulldog whose slobber, unfortunately, could be measured in gallons.

“She’s in assisted living now. But she didn’t receive the payoff she was supposed to get on her house, just a letter saying there would be an ‘unfortunate delay’ in the payment. Assisting living can be expensive, and she was counting on that money. She’s afraid she may wind up out
on the street.”

“Has she contacted them since the letter?”

“She’s tried to, but her calls are never returned.”
      

“Sounds as if she may need a lawyer,” I said.

“That’s what we think too. But she’s in no financial position to hire one, of course. I’m guessing Radison Properties is counting on that. Sometimes I’m afraid we’re dealing with a bunch of shysters.”

“That’s too bad. I’ve been considering their offer on my place, but this makes me wonder.”

“We’re wondering too, but we’ve already sold. That’s why we’re here. We were afraid maybe they’d already torn the house down, even though we haven’t received our payoff yet.”

“But it isn’t torn down and the payment isn’t even due yet for a month yet,” Marie reminded him. “And the Burdishes got their payoff early, remember? And now they’re living in Florida.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Ed gave me an apologetic smile. “I suppose I’m just getting impatient. Maybe a little paranoid too. Don’t let me change your mind if you want to sell. They’re offering good prices, and Madison Street sure isn’t improving with age.”

“Did you ever meet a representative of Radison Properties in person when you were dealing with them?”

“No. Everything was handled by mail or Fed Ex, and it was real easy.”

“Okay, thanks.”

The evening turned out to be fun. Good food. Some impromptu guitar playing by Tattooed Girl.
She had a nice voice, and I was actually familiar with some of her songs. Officer DeLora showed up, and her tomato casserole was great. I heard several people ask for the recipe. She was in jeans and big dangly earrings, her hair loose and swing
y. She didn’t look like a cop, but I saw her working the crowd from a cop’s perspective, checking everyone out.

My brownies were ordinary but disappeared quickly. Magnolia made unexpected use of that wand when Tattooed Girl’s boyfriend got a little unruly. She gave him a tap on the head that was more like a whack, which was when I realized the wand was actually a metal rod Geoff had painted gold for her. Unruly Guy blinked and sat down and wasn’t unruly any more. Tattooed Girl was admiring Officer DeLora’s dangly earrings at the time.

But I was still impatient for it to be over. I wanted to find out what this trip was that Mac thought we should take.

Chapter Eighteen

We finally had a few minutes alone when Mac walked back to Eric and Tasha’s with me. They’d gone home early to get the pickup loaded for tomorrow’s flea market.

“So what is this trip you think we should take?” I admit the question came out grumpy. I was still suspicious it was just some get-Ivy-out-of-town trick.

“To a place called Heart of Home Hill down in Arkansas.”

“You want to go see a hill?”

“It’s not just a
hill.
I’ve been digging around on the internet and found it. I think it’s the name of a nursing home or assisted living or retirement home, something like that.”

“And you think we should go there because one or more of us should be in a place like this?” I inquired.

“I think we should take a look at it because it’s owned by something called Braxton Brothers.”

I stopped short, my snarky attitude doing a 180 right there in the middle of the street. “You think this may be Drake Braxton’s new business? The source of money for his interest in Porsches and swimming-pool-sized house additions?”

“I don’t know. There’s no website with photos or information. You’d think they’d be promoting the place, but I found it only because I decided to search for Braxton property ownership in some nearby states. I can’t see how it could have anything to do with the Braxtons murdering Lillian Hunnicutt or burning your motorhome, but you never know.”

“Where is it, exactly?”

“In or near a small town called Daniel Springs in the Ozark Mountains. I’ll show you.”

Mac got out his smart phone, brought up a map of Arkansas and then zeroed in on the appropriate area, which was southeast of Fayetteville. “We’ll probably have to take the motorhome. It’s going to be more than a one-day trip.”

That wasn’t as cozy a situation as his suggestion might imply. When being away from home was necessary another time, Mac graciously gave me the bedroom and slept on the sofa himself. But after seeing the map I had a better idea.

“Woodston, where my niece DeeAnn lives, is on the opposite side of Fayetteville . . . remember, you visited me there once? . . . but Daniel Springs shouldn’t be all that far from Woodston.” I keep in touch with DeeAnn and grand-niece Sandy, but I haven’t seen them since I drove away from Woodston in the motorhome I’d just then acquired, but which was now a warped skeleton in my driveway. “Maybe we could spend a night with them, take the next day to investigate this Heart of Home place, and spend another night with them on the way home.”

“Would they mind spur-of-the-moment guests?”

“I’ll see.”

My non-smart phone doesn’t provide maps like Mac’s, but it does all that I ask of a phone, which is make phone calls. DeeAnn answered on the third ring, and she was delighted with the prospect of visitors. I told her we’d be there sometime tomorrow.

At the last minute, before going to bed, I went out and talked to Tasha. I figured my LOL invisibility might need a little upgrading for this venture into Braxton territory.

***

Next morning, when Mac picked me up for breakfast at McDonalds, Tasha and Eric had already left with their load of bargains for the flea market. We took turns driving after we were headed down to Arkansas. I made a suggestion on the way that we not elaborate to DeeAnn and Mike why we were visiting Heart of Home Hill. They aren’t freak-out type people, but the idea of our prowling around in Braxton territory might arouse a dormant freak gene. Mac agreed.

As soon as we pulled into the yard at their home beside Little Tom Lake later that day, Sandy, in crop top and shorts, ran out to meet us with hugs. Their enormous dog Baby was with her. He gave me a slurpy welcome. I don’t know if this was because he remembered me or because he’s eager to slurp almost anyone. Sandy’s friend, Skye, who’d been living with them since I was here before, was temporarily visiting her mother in New York. I already knew, from photos, that Sandy had grown into a very nice looking young lady, and now I also saw she’d
outgrown me by half a head. She noticed my ankle tattoos right away.

“Aunt Ivy, you did it!” she squealed. “They look awesome!”

She bent over to look at my ankles. Mac looked then too. My ankles haven’t been inspected with so much interest in the past twenty years.

“Did you do the other one too? The one for your belly-button?” Sandy asked.

“You can tattoo your
belly-button?
” Mac asked.

Sandy interpreted the tone of his question correctly. “Oh, Mac, don’t be so horrified,” she scolded. “They’re fakes! Just a transfer thing that goes on your skin. And it’s
around
your belly-button, not in it.”

“I can take them off any time,” I assured him.
      

“Okay, let’s see the belly-button one,” Mac said.
      
      

Now I was the horrified one. “No way.”

“That isn’t fair,” Mac said. He seemed to have developed a certain enthusiasm for this now. “To get a fake tattoo and then keep it a big secret.”

I made a pointed glance at
his
tattoo, the real one of the blue motorcycle on his forearm. It might be viewable, but he’d always been less than forthcoming about it. The glance made him back off and become busy getting our overnight bags out of the pickup.

Sandy wasn’t giving up yet, however. “You could put on your bikini and show—”

“Sandy Harrington, you know very well I don’t own a bikini!”

“Then maybe it’s time you got—”

“Okay, that’s it,” I said. “No more talk about tattoos or bikinis or belly-buttons.
None. Zip. The subject is
finis
.”

Sandy looked mildly downcast. “Are you mad because I sent them to you?”

I gave her another hug. “Of course not, sweetie. Actually, they are fun.” I put out my foot, and we both admired my ankle butterfly again.

“I had a couple of dolphins on my shoulder. They were fun too, but after a while, I was really glad I wasn’t stuck with them for life.”

“Me too.” Sometimes I wonder about all the girls I see now with permanent designs everywhere, from nape of neck to small of back to depth of cleavage. How are all those astrological designs and tangled vines and mysterious faces going to look when wrinkles and cellulite and gravity get hold of them?

“I’m really glad you’re here,” Sandy said as we went arm-in-arm to the house, Mac following, Baby galumphing on ahead. “Mom said she didn’t think you were coming just for a visit. She thought you might have a big announcement to make.” She cast a meaningful glance over her shoulder at Mac.

“No big announcement.”

“I don’t understand you two. It seems about time—”

“Another subject that is not open for discussion,” I told her. “Unless you want to give me a detailed rundown on your romance life.”

“Sure,” she said. “I kind of like this guy on my gymnastics team. But then there’s this terrific guy who lifeguards at—”

“Never mind,” I muttered at this backfire of my challenge.

Although, over dinner, the news about my blown-up-and-burned motorhome did come across as a big announcement, but of a different sort than I knew they were all hoping for.

“Braxtons,” DeeAnn said, an accusation not a question. “Oh, I don’t like you being in the same state, let alone the same
city
, with them. Why don’t you—”

I knew DeeAnn had started to suggest I come stay with them, but the Braxtons had found me here once. Which was when they’d tried to dynamite both my Thunderbird and me into the next county.
At least I was sure it was them, even though they’d never been officially tied to it. Braxtons are slippery as greased pigs at squirming their way out of things.

DeeAnn apparently registered that problem with the Braxtons and altered the suggestion. “Maybe you could use the insurance money to buy another motorhome and get away from Madison Street again.”

Mike nodded. “You could update too. The newer ones have those nice tip-outs for more space. We can help out if you need something extra to swing a deal.”

“Thanks. That’s really sweet of you, but I’m still, umm, considering my options.” I never thought I’d use that grandiose sounding phrase, but there it was. “What we’re doing on this trip is looking at a place called Heart of Home Hill over at Daniel Springs. Then we’ll be back here again tomorrow night. Have you ever heard of it?”