It Must Be Magic (5 page)

Einstein hunkered in the trampled grass.
She spammed me.

Einstein was like a shadow, following Lili everywhere, often sitting at Lili’s computer while she downloaded her e-mail. In between her weekly calls to her parents, that’s how Lili kept in touch. For every one real e-mail, she got twenty spam, which she vociferously complained about. Einstein knew what spam was.

Lili put her hands on her hips. “
Who
did
what?
”

Flashing SPAM can images this time, and a likeness of Lady Dreadlock.

“She talked to you while you were hiding in the grass?”

Didn’t I say that?
Einstein flumped onto her side.

“Don’t do that. I’m going to have to pick all the burrs out of your fur.” She’d have to do it anyway since Einstein had been chasing field mice for half an hour. “What did she say?”

Something about the fires of hell. And you.
The image was so clear, Lili almost felt the fire up her skirt. “She imaged you like I do?”

If a cat could sigh, that was what Einstein did with a slow, weary exhalation of breath.
Humans. Yes!

The fires of hell didn’t clarify anything more than what Lady Dreadlock had already said. But that wasn’t the important thing. “She talks to animals.”

If Lili had figured that out on the sidewalk outside the coffeehouse with a crowd of coffee drinkers milling around her, she’d have been ecstatic. But alone in a field two days after Fluffy had seen something awful happen, Lili was sure the fires of hell weren’t something she wanted to know anything about.

T
ANNER GOT HOME FROM WORK
later than he’d intended, which happened far more often than not. A meeting ran late; a report had to go out; there was always something. Tonight, however, he had a date, and if he didn’t hurry, by the time he’d changed, his car would be blocked in the driveway. Friday was pinochle night, and though Roscoe’s friends all lived in the neighborhood, Chester brought them over in his ancient car for the weekly game. One of these days, the old man was going to have to give up driving, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Tanner had pulled in alongside the garage and was climbing out of his car when he saw her through the hedge. Lili pushed open the gate and tramped into her yard. From the woods. Her bright skirt was like a beacon through the hedge bushes. He’d planted the hedge a couple of years ago to separate the yards, but there were gaps that hadn’t grown in completely.

Tanner found one of those gaps and pushed through to head her off before she could get to the house. Her boots were dusty and her socks stabbed through with stickers. Her long, dark tresses had a few stickers, too, and she’d wrapped her arms around her abdomen in an almost defensive posture.

“What were you doing out there?”

She jumped. Concentrating on her feet, she hadn’t seen him. But she recovered quickly. “Out where?”

All innocence. Tanner wasn’t fooled. Dammit. “You were searching for the body, weren’t you?”

She rolled her lips between her teeth, looked down at the cat standing beside her with its fur all ruffled up, then let her gaze pass over the kitchen door, the stoop, the ten feet between her and it. Anywhere but at him. “Not exactly.”

Tanner took a deep breath to maintain control. He didn’t want to flip out on her, but the woman pushed all his buttons. “What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

Finally, she looked right at him. “It means that if I saw something while I was walking, I could tell the police about it.”

Tanner circled, stopping with his back to her while he took deep belly breaths, then finally turned to face her. “Have you no sense, woman?” He held up his hands. “Sorry. That didn’t come out right.”

But it was exactly what he meant. He had doubts about whether she could talk to Fluffy. Or Einstein. Or any other nonhuman organism on the face of the planet. He required concrete proof, such as the body she said was out there. Not that he wanted Lili to find it. But
she
didn’t have doubts. She believed she could talk to animals. Which meant she’d wandered in the woods knowing full well she could stumble across a dead man, or worse, the killer who had done the deed. Lili, the little idiot, had knowingly put herself in an extremely dangerous situation. Didn’t she have a jot of common sense?

Jesus. She was like Karen in so many ways, with outlandish ideas that spelled trouble. If Karen hadn’t been sure she had powerful psychic talents that only needed to be nurtured to come to full potency, if she hadn’t been driving to Sedona to find all that nurturing, if she hadn’t expressly defied his wishes, if she hadn’t…

“Okay.” Lili’s voice pulled him back from the brink. “Here’s the thing.” She gulped as if she needed to find courage. “I got scared out there and decided that it was dumb to be by myself, so I came back before I started looking for a body.”

Thank God Lili had
some
sense. “Don’t ever do that again.”

She scared him half to death even as she made him think about things he’d relegated to a place deep inside that he rarely allowed himself access to. He couldn’t allow it now. What the hell concern was it of his what Lili Goodweather did?

He was, however, in touch with his inner guy enough to know that if it had been Viola the postal lady he’d seen walking out of the woods, he wouldn’t have gotten angry.

“Even Einstein told me it was stupid, and she should know since she’s —”

“Yeah, I know, the reincarnation of the smartest man in history.” He ran a hand through his hair, and his tie felt too tight around his neck.

“I didn’t go very far,” she added. “Honest.”

He tapped his foot, and dirt puffed up from the scrubby grass, coating his dress shoe. “How far did you go?”

“Fifteen minutes, maybe.” But she looked at the sky, and he figured that fifteen minutes had stretched to half an hour.

She needed a keeper. “That’s too far.”

She rolled her eyes. “Believe me, I know. I’m not doing
that
again.” Then she looked at him with a hint of mistiness in her eyes. “They were supposed to be
my
woods, and I’ve never been scared out there before. They’ve always been welcoming.”

“Innocence lost,” he murmured, then admitted the truth to himself. There was an air of innocence about her that called to him. The way she used five sentences to say something that anyone else could have said in one. The way her thoughts rolled off her tongue. The way her fluttery skirts exemplified her personality, light and whimsical. When she wasn’t being idiotic.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.” He wished for a moment that she hadn’t moved in next door. He had a date tonight, and his dates were with levelheaded women who weren’t anything like Lili. Watching the fading sunlight play through her hair, casting it with shades of moonlit-blue and midnight-black, he found himself wanting the women he dated to be more like Lili.

“Promise you won’t go on walks by yourself looking for bodies.” It was his duty to give her one last reminder. “And you’ll let the police handle it.”

“I’ll let the police handle it,” she parroted.

“And you won’t talk to Fluffy again.”

“I won’t.” She put her hands behind her back.

“Let me see your fingers. I want to make sure you’re not crossing them.”

She held up both hands, then zipped her lip. “I won’t say a word to Fluffy. Or Erika. Or Roscoe. Is there anyone else I shouldn’t tell? You’d better get it all out. Maybe I should get a pad of paper and write it down.” Then she covered her mouth. “Oops, I just remembered. I already told my boss.”

He realized he’d been talking to her as if she were Erika’s age, and condescendingly, too. Instead of getting mad, she was making fun of him. He raised one brow. “And what did he say?”

“
She
said I needed to use common sense.”

“My kind of woman.” Sensible.

Lili didn’t say anything at all to that.

“Now that we’ve got that settled…” He glanced at his watch. He’d be late, yet an odd reluctance to leave her kept him rooted to the spot.

“Is there something else you wanted to tell me not to do? Speak now or forever hold your peace and all that stuff.”

What he wanted to do was spend the evening with her instead of his date, Anna, an accountant. “I have a date.”

She tipped her head. “That seems like a non sequitur.”

It was, as far as Lili was concerned, not being privy to his inner thoughts. At least she couldn’t read them as she claimed she could read animal thoughts. “I’ve got a date tonight, but I want to make sure you’ll be okay by yourself before I leave.”

“I’ve been living on my own for a while now. And I can scream very loudly, so if the bogeyman or Bigfoot shows up at my door, I’ll be sure to wake the dead.”

As long as it wasn’t the body lying out there somewhere in the woods. Next thing you know, she’d be saying
it
could walk. Yet he still didn’t leave.

After a beat of silence, she asked, “Did you get flowers for your date? Women love flowers.”

“She’s not that kind of woman.”

“Every woman is that kind of woman. Wait here a minute.” She skipped around him in those hiking boots, puffs of dirt floating up and getting caught in little eddies by the breeze.

“I need to get out of here,” he told himself as the screen door banged behind her. Yet he didn’t want to. He’d known Anna for a little over a year. He’d dated her three times and slept with her once. He wasn’t in love with her; she wasn’t in love with him. He wasn’t looking for a replacement for Karen or a mother for Erika. Not that he was afraid of emotional attachment as Roscoe often claimed, but neither was he into celibacy.

Yet being around Lili made him feel casual sex should be a little more than casual. And that was the scariest damn thought.

L
ILI BOUNDED BACK OUT
the door with a flower vase stuck in the center circular frame of a cardboard holder.

“I made them this afternoon during a lull,” she said.

“They’re…” Tanner couldn’t think of an appropriate description. “Interesting?” It sounded like a question.

“I’m not a designer, but I like to tinker.” She held up the vase for his inspection. “I’m a good tinkerer, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely.” He’d never seen the like. A profusion of color, the blooms themselves were exotic and unidentifiable.

“They’re wildflowers. I picked them myself.” She shrugged. “My boss, Kate, says I’m going to be arrested one day for picking contraband, but I didn’t take any California poppies. Now that would be illegal.”

“What are they?”

She clucked her tongue. “Looking up the names would take the fun out of it.” Light sparkled through the green glass and water as she held it up to the fading sun. “Analyzing takes away from the pure enjoyment. This way it’s artistic.”

“Very artistic.” The arrangement, though some people could say she’d simply plopped a bunch of blossoms in water, was like Lili, imaginative, unusual and vibrant. He didn’t think Anna would fully appreciate it. “Ah, thanks.”

She placed his hand flat beneath the cardboard and tinkered with the flowers. She didn’t look up, but her touch robbed him of speech and sent a flash of primal heat rushing through his body. She certainly had an effect on his base nature. He needed to get his head out of his —

“There. Perfect.”

Oh yeah, she was. He had forgotten why he’d been angry when he’d seen her entering her backyard. Rather, he didn’t give a damn. Two stickers were trapped in her hair. Balancing the flower vase, he plucked the first one from her silky locks. Her pupils changed, grew slightly larger. The other sticker took longer to pull free, and her breath sighed from her lips. His own was stuck in his throat.

“Thank you,” she said with a hint of huskiness.

“How much do I owe you for the flowers?” It seemed the safest thing to say.

She flapped her hand. “Don’t be silly. But let her think it was really expensive because it’s so unique. Women like it when they think you’ve spent a lot of money on them.”

Did
she
like expensive gifts? “You know a lot about women.”

She tapped her temple. “Hello! I
am
a woman.”

“I know.” God, did he know.

Just then, the cat, whom Tanner had forgotten, stretched up along Lili’s side, its sheathed claws reaching to the high point on her thigh. It was one damn long cat.

Lili stroked its head. “I do not have a can of SPAM.” She glanced at Tanner. “Einstein’s got SPAM on the brain right now.”

Tanner had things on his brain, too. Like carnivores and Bigfoot having her for dinner. Tanner wanted her for dessert.

“Thanks for the flowers,” he said, backing away.

“Let me know what your date thinks.”

He hadn’t a single desire to go out on his date tonight. He didn’t want Anna. He had condoms in the glove box, and he knew he wasn’t going to even open the drugstore bag.

Yesterday, going to see Lili had been about what he thought Erika did and didn’t need in her life. Twenty-four short hours later, it was about Lili and what
he
wanted from
her.

He needed to get out of Lili’s backyard.

“T
HAT WAS WEIRD
,” Lili whispered to Einstein as Tanner pushed through the hedge wall.

Actually, it was stimulating. Her heart raced in her chest and her toes tingled. Like the adrenaline rush of a bad fright. Or the moment Tanner had said he had a date.

Not that she was jealous. Tanner wasn’t interested in a woman like her. She babbled too much and talked to animals. Not that she was interested in Tanner Rutland, either, no matter how deliciously tall, good-looking, loyal, commanding, blond or blue-eyed he was. He thought she was wacky. She’d had enough of that from men, enough of it from people in general. Lili patted her side as she moved up the stoop. Einstein followed.

SPAM, SPAM, SPAM.

“I told you I don’t have any SPAM.” Though Einstein might be talking about Lady Dreadlock and her spam mind-mail. What did it mean? Lili didn’t have an answer.

She opened the kitchen door and was almost bowled over by the cat milieu. She should have fed them before she went out, but she’d been afraid it would get dark before she completed her mission. Rita sat down in the middle of the floor and yowled.

“That is so undignified. Rita Hayworth would never make that noise.” With a leopard-spotted coat, Rita was the sleek personification of the movie star she’d named herself for. Except when she yowled.

Lili started popping tops and scooping food onto plates. The cats attacked the food the minute she set it on the floor. No matter how intelligent animals were, they reverted to base instinct when they were hungry.

“You know, I’ve got an idea,” Lili mused. “I promised Tanner
I
wouldn’t talk to Roscoe or Erika or Fluffy, but I didn’t promise
you
wouldn’t.”

Einstein flashed the universal
stop
symbol even as she happily munched away.

“I know it didn’t work before. But if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Yeah, the idea was good. “Tonight we go see Fluffy in his house.” She shook her finger at Einstein. “Do not talk about emasculation or superior female intelligence.”

She waited until Tanner backed his car out of the driveway next door, then a big Lincoln pulled in, the engine knocking and pinging for a few minutes after a trio of elderly men climbed from the car.

Darn. Roscoe was having guests. But a good idea was one that couldn’t be ignored. Lili headed out.

Erika answered the door. “Lili, I’m so glad you’re here.”

Princess
emblazoned her fuchsia T-shirt, and pigtails secured her long blond tresses. But those dark circles under her eyes looked almost like purple bruises.

“Is Fluffy okay?”

Erika pulled Lili inside the front hall with a strength that belied her thin arms. “He was okay until Grandpa got out the card table, but he’s totally freaked now.”

With
do something
written all over her, her slender body practically pulsated with anxiety. Lili’s heart dropped to her toes. “Can Einstein come in, too?”

“Only if we don’t tell Dad.”

Lili zipped her lips. “I won’t.” Jeez, not even two seconds into her plan, she was already conspiring against Tanner.

A set of stairs lay straight ahead, open double doors on one side of the hardwood hall, and another set on the other side through which Lili could hear the rumble of male voices. The scent of appetizers wafted into the hall along with the voices.

“Grandpa’s having his pinochle party.” Erika looked at the door, then back to Lili. “There’s Linwood and Chester and Hiram. Linwood’s a Korean War hero, and he wears his uniform, so don’t look like you think that’s dumb.” She waited for Lili to nod. “Chester was almost a famous movie star once, so when he says he made a movie with Deanna Durbin, pretend you know who she is.”

“What if he asks me what movie she was in?”

“He won’t, trust me. And Hiram wrote a very important novel, so act like you’ve heard of it. Dad says they’re tall stories, except for Hiram. He really did write a book once. But it makes them all happy if you look excited when they tell you about it. So pretend if you have to. It’s good for them.”

What a sweet sentiment. Most adults wouldn’t appreciate that, let alone a child of twelve. Erika was exceptional.

Lili smiled. “I won’t even have to pretend.”

Einstein drifted through the open door like a wisp of smoke the elderly men probably wouldn’t even notice.

Erika leaned in and whispered, “Fluffy’s behind the couch,” then called loud enough to echo in Lili’s ears, “Grandpa, Lili’s here.” How could children do that, generate so much volume with such a small body? Erika dragged her into the room.

“Lili, my dear.” Roscoe smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners and the grooves deepening by his mouth. “You just missed Tanner. I hope you two had a good conversation last night. I’ve been telling him he needed to get over there to meet you.”

Ha, she’d been right. Roscoe had fibbed yesterday when he’d said Tanner couldn’t
wait
to meet her. “I adored meeting him. He’s the most fascinating man.” She hoped that wasn’t laying it on too thick, even if it was the truth.

Then she had a sudden thought. What if Erika and Roscoe told Tanner she’d come over for a visit? He’d think she talked to them about the murder against his wishes.
Hello, why didn’t you think of that before?
Too late now; it would only arouse suspicion if she asked them not to tell.

“Come and meet the boys. They love pretty young women.”

Elderly men did, unless they were curmudgeons. “Thank you for saying I’m pretty.”

Roscoe took her arm. A large stone fireplace dominated the room, with an old-fashioned rag rug in front of the hearth and an easy chair to one side facing the TV. The heavy wood coffee table had been pushed back to make space in the center of the room for a card table, four folding chairs and another smaller table laden with plates and drinks. Erika dashed around them to fling herself on the couch beneath the window, hanging over the back to croon for Fluffy.

As if he were presenting her to the King — or kings — of England, Roscoe ushered Lili forward to the trio of elderly gentlemen grazing off plates piled high with food.

“Gentlemen, I’ve got a special treat for you. This is our new neighbor, Lili Goodweather.”

“Linwood Daniels, at your service.”

Over a pair of brown polyester slacks, Linwood wore a short brown jacket like the one she’d seen Eisenhower wear in war documentaries on the History Channel. The left front dripped with an impressive array of ribbons and medals, but the buttonholes stretched to full capacity and then some over his equally impressive belly.

He grabbed her hand and pumped it in his meaty grip. “You are a delight, a feast for the eyes.” A neat band of frosty white hair circled his head from ear to ear, and a thick beard covered his chin. He looked like a Santa Claus.

His eyes were a tad hazy with cataracts, so Lili wasn’t exactly sure how he could tell she was a feast for the eyes. “That’s so sweet, thank you.”

“Let her go, Linwood,” Roscoe said, then drew her to the middle man. “Chester Pawson.”

With the same white fringe of hair, he was also in his midseventies, though with fifty less pounds on him, not counting the medals, than Linwood Daniels. Chester stared at her in wide, green-eyed wonder and picked up the hand Linwood had released, giving a gentlemanly brush of a kiss on the back. “You look like Deanna Durbin. I made a movie with her back in the heyday. It was destined to be a classic. We knew it even then.” He cocked his head at Roscoe. “What did you say her name is?”

“Lili Goodweather.” Then Roscoe whispered in her ear, “Every woman he meets looks like Deanna Durbin.”

“It’s such a wonderful compliment, Mr. Pawson. Deanna Durbin was magnificent.” She hadn’t a clue but didn’t care as Chester’s eyes glowed. He squeezed her hand. “She was incomparable,” Lili added.

“Oh, she was, she was. I was only seventeen at the time, but I will never forget those glorious days. If it weren’t for her encouragement, my career would never have gotten off the ground.”

Lili was afraid it hadn’t gotten off the ground at all, so all she did was smile. Chester squeezed her hand harder. He had remarkable strength for his age. “Say, aren’t you the young lady who talks to animals? We’ve seen you at the Coffee Stain.”

It was Lili’s turn to flush pink. Lord. She realized now the two oldsters she’d seen that very morning at the Stain were none other than Linwood and Chester. “Ah, yes. That’s me.”

“Lili’s here to talk to Fluffy.” Erika beamed. “He had a bad fright Wednesday night, and Lili’s giving him therapy.”

“That’s enough about Fluffy until we’ve finished the introductions. Drop her hand, Chester,” Roscoe ordered. “Last but not least, this is Professor Hiram Battle.”

A tall beanpole of a man, he shook Lili’s hand with so much vigor, her teeth almost rattled in her head. “Nice meeting,” he said in abbreviated reply.

“You, too. You’re a professor up at the college?”

“University.” He rubbed his fingers in his steel-wool cap of hair. “College implies either a technical school or something of the junior variety.”

Translation: something of inferior quality.

Lili decided not to mention that she hadn’t attended either university or college. That hadn’t been in her life plan. Not that she had a real life plan. “Erika tells me you’ve written a book. That’s marvelous.”

“It’s a literary novel, required reading in many halls of higher education.”

“That’s wonderful.” Then she edged around them before she made a mistake and backed toward Erika on the couch. “It’s so nice meeting all of you, but don’t let me disturb you. I’m going to see how Fluffy’s doing. He hasn’t been feeling well.”

“That’s because he pinched a Vienna sausage right off Roscoe’s table. I saw him,” Linwood said. “Then he dragged it behind the couch like a pirate with his booty.”

“That’s crap, Linwood. He’s been behind the couch since I got out the card table, which was before I put the sausages out.”

“Then it must have been a rat. A long, gray thing. You’d better tell your son to get rid of the rats. I hate rats.”

Oops. It wasn’t a rat. It was Einstein. That naughty cat.

Chester jumped into the fray. “Skunks are worse. You ever had one blow off outside your window? Enough to gag a maggot.”

Linwood snorted. “Maggots don’t gag.”

“It’s an expression, you old fart.”

“There are no rats in this house,” Roscoe declared.

“Gentlemen, are we going to play cards or are you three going to duke it out all night?” Hiram pulled out a chair and folded his beanpole frame into it, his knees almost hitting the table. Then he pinched a sausage and popped it in his mouth.

“You shuffle the pack, Hiram.” Roscoe unboxed a deck and fanned them, the numbers and suits on the cards oversize, probably in deference to Linwood’s cataracts. Then he straightened them again and handed the pack to Hiram. “I’ll get the rest of the appetizers before they burn.”