Nothing but Gossip (14 page)

“Where in the bah-Jaysus are you?” Mother yelled furiously into the phone when I called her. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for hours.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Well … for God’s sake, Lilly,” she gasped. “I’m absolutely frantic. You know the Jeromes arrive in half
an hour, and who knows where in the world you have been. What on earth is that sound?”

We were driving around the end of the runway and Richard and I both ducked, although we didn’t need to, as a Frontier 737 with a couple of polar bears painted on its tail passed overhead on final approach.

Finally, when the noise had cleared, I said, “It was a plane, Mother. We’re at the airport to pick them up.”

“Oh, thank God.” All the air escaped. “You’re at the airport. I was afraid you’d forget. You almost gave me a heart attack. Where’s your brother?”

“He’s following us.”

“All right. I’ll call him up. But now listen to me, Lilly. Don’t get nervous and say anything stupid to Mr. and Mrs. Jerome. And for God’s sake, don’t use any profanity. What are you wearing?”

“I’m sorry, Mother,” I shouted into the phone, although the reception was perfect. “I can’t hear you. I think our transmission’s breaking up. Bye. Bye.”

The terminal came into sight, and I pulled down the visor and flipped open the mirror to examine my makeup. “Even if your parents change their minds and decide they hate me, will you still go through with it?”

“Lilly. I’m not having this conversation again.”

We pulled into the lot and arrived at the gate just as their plane docked. Richard’s parents and his grown, twin sons were the first people out. They all looked just alike—tall, thin, determined, good old-fashioned
WASP
New Englanders. Well dressed, but not chic. Kind, but not overly friendly faces. Reserved, but not cold or standoffish demeanor. And bright-eyed as new drill bits. They had never missed a thing. His parents, both in their late eighties, were slightly stooped, which only made them seem more distinguished.

I’d been to visit them back East, but this was their
first visit to Roundup, which, as we all know, is nothing like Manhattan or Fisher’s Island. Nothing. And their first time to meet my family, which is nothing like theirs. Nothing.

Well, of course, everything was fine. And the boys, Richard III, and Charles, young men really—they’d both graduated from Princeton in June and gone straight to work for the family bank—were as handsome and charming as their father and seemed genuinely glad to see me.

I
always think we look just like Roy and Dale when we stand out here and wait for our guests to land, don’t you?” I snuggled into Richard’s side as the evening breeze whipped across the meadow, causing the stampede strap on my hat to tug on my chin and my buckskin skirt to sway around like I was doing the hula.

“Younger.”

The sun shone directly into our eyes, making it difficult to spot the chopper until suddenly it exploded from the brightness like a chariot of the gods—all noise and aggravation. And, in fact, the analogy was not groundless—my mother was on board and dinner tonight could be described as a parley of clan leaders. Three big chiefs: my father, Richard’s father, and Richard. And three big squaws: my mother, Richard’s mother, and me. As long as it didn’t turn into the clash of the Titans, it would be fine. I didn’t know about Richard’s mother, but mine could turn a garden party into Armageddon with a flick of her wrist. Just the attitude with which she ground out her cigarette could polarize a crowd like
lightning, serve notice that the fun, for her, was just getting started.

And now, with the ceremonial arrival of our parents, our wedding festivities were officially beginning. As we stood there, so close there was no light between us, it was as though I were watching the whole thing from someone else’s body with someone else’s eyes. The lovely craft settled to terra firma, the door opened as the engines whined down, the stairway extended. The copilot emerged, settling his cap firmly on his head, and reached up his hand to assist the passengers. Down the road, Elias’s dented and rusted-out Ford pickup bumped across the deep ruts and over the noisy cattleguard, dust following him halfheartedly. His Australian shepherds, Gal and Pal, sat calmly in the truck bed, and I had the idea they had been playing cards and wanted the ride to be over so they could resume their hands. On the other side of the valley, light glinted off Christian’s Range Rover as he and Mimi raced not to be late, and I had an image of Mimi pumping Bal a Versailles on herself from an old-fashioned atomizer and smoothing her already seamless blond chignon while Christian, a big cigar clamped between his teeth, squinted into the sun and floored it. And then everyone was greeting everyone else, and Richard and I welcomed them to the house, almost
our
house, where Celestina waited at the patio gate in a hot-pink smocked Mexican wedding dress with a tray of triple-shot Cuervo Gold margaritas, and no current knowledge of the English language.

“Elias,” I said once everyone had settled in, “I need you to do me another favor.”

“You mean
now
?” he said once I’d described my idea.

“Do you mind?”

“No, actually, I don’t. I don’t know how you’re keeping up. I’m kind of partied out. Just seeing the same people night after night. If I ever got married, it’d be nothing like this.”

“Take the helicopter. You’ll be back in no time.”

“Can I take Linda? She’s still at the office.”

“Sure, as long as she gets to work on time in the morning.”

This cheered him up significantly.

I scrawled out a note, folded it up, and handed it to him. “Give this to her. Top priority. Hopefully she can go to work on it on the ride.”

“Where is your brother going?” Mother asked when Elias gunned the engine, sending billows of stinking exhaust across the patio as the old Ford bounced and jerked down to the helipad.

“He’s just running an errand for me,” I told her. “He’ll be right back.”

“In the middle of a dinner party?”

“It’s important,” I said.

“Honestly, Lilly, if I get you through this wedding, it will be the miracle of the century. I wish you hadn’t taken on this new case. I’m so afraid something will happen to you.”

“You aren’t going all maternal on me now, are you?” I gave her a squeeze. “Don’t worry, Mama. Nothing will happen to me. I’m learning to delegate.”

“Try to find someone besides your brother,” she said. “Last time you almost got him killed. His leg’s just now getting back to normal.”

“Don’t you think the Jeromes are delightful?”

“Oh, so attractive I just can’t stand it.”

I think she wasn’t as spooled up about our wedding as she usually got about everything else because she was actually enjoying herself.

Richard came and stood beside me as the helicopter departed with Elias aboard. “Are you sorry you aren’t on it?”

I couldn’t answer. I turned and looked up at him, into his deep, gentle blue eyes, so full of his love and humor and maturity. “Would you have come with me?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

I didn’t deserve him.

T
he fact was, something in this whole case stank. The more I thought about the Russian letters, the more they bothered me. Not because of what they said, but because of what they didn’t say, and didn’t do. It was not simply the use of the wrong word, which, in truth, made them not an actual legal threat at all: “Vote yes or you’ll diet.” What was that? Nothing. But they were rushed. Were they an afterthought, designed to draw us in the wrong direction because the attempted murder had been flubbed?

It was possible the annual meeting had nothing to do with anything and was simply a convenient way to attempt to salvage a seriously screwed-up situation. This idea would not leave me. It had dug itself into my brain like a too-tight waistband.

The helicopter had brought Elias home at about midnight, and at five forty-five, while Richard and I were in the barn saddling up, he and Linda drove off toward town.

“What do you suppose that’s all about?” Richard
asked as the big maroon Suburban vanished into the deep shadows of the trees like a magician’s trick.

“I don’t know.” A gnaw of worry tugged at my right shoulder blade and kinked my neck. “I wish he’d stopped by first.”

We settled ourselves onto our horses and moved slowly away from the barn, stretching, breathing deep breaths of the cold, rich air that every day grew more pungent and loamy with fallen leaves. Our horses seemed to be glad for the slow start. Everyone seemed a little lumpy this morning, a little partied out and pooped. Except for Elias and Linda, evidently.

As though by unspoken consent, our mounts picked up speed, trotting and then cantering, and we all—Richard, me, Hotspur, and Ariel—headed in the direction of the pavilion, Mother’s magnificent creation constructed for my goddaughter Lulu’s wedding to the baron last June. It would be the scene of our reception in four days.

We loped slowly down the road, up a short rise, through a gap in the rocks, down a steep, sharp hill through the trees, and then out into a wide meadow, where the river flowed, gentle and silent, a silver ribbon in the clear morning. There, on the far side, in streamers of clean, white sun, the pavilion shimmered like a golden palace. Built of shellacked, peeled pine logs with a moss-green shingle roof, the structure was open on three sides. The sunlight had turned its vast, varnished floor into a brilliant lake. We dismounted and sat down on the wide steps of its shore.

“Well,” he said. “What do you think?”

I pulled a little Thermos out of my pocket and poured us each a small mug of coffee.

“I’m thinking I’m getting drawn off by someone who wants to look stupid and bumbling, but isn’t. I’m thinking
about the annual meeting today and hoping Linda got the
SIBA
stockholders’ list last night. And I’m thinking that Elias and Linda must be on to something and I want to know what it is. What are you thinking?”

“You mean besides business?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m thinking I’d like to make love in the middle of this floor.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

“Me, too.”

We ripped our clothes off and made love right there in the middle of nature with all the passionate enthusiasm and fervor of dogs who’d been eyeing each other for months, although in fact it had been only hours.

“Maybe we could get married more often,” I said.

Overnight, the
Range of My Heart
production company had mushroomed into something bigger than Hollywood itself. Everything had doubled. Twice as many dressing-room trailers. Twice as many eighteen-wheelers. Twice as many pickups and customized white Hollywood Suburbans with blacked-out windows and drug-dealer grilles. Even the security guard at my little parking lot was twice as big as the Napoleonic nut-case from the day before. This one tipped his cowboy hat and called out, “Good morning, Marshal,” when I drove in. They’d even reserved a space with my name on it.

I parked next to Wade Gilhooly’s Eldorado. Wade’s blonde was visiting with Dwight, who appeared ready to hang his family jewels over the car door. They awaited only her invitation, which she was in the process of delivering. Her eyes smoldered like coals
through a wide band of terra-cotta and silver eye paint that practically stretched from ear to ear like a bandit’s mask. Her mouth, with its big red lips, looked like a smiling tomato surrounding carnivorous teeth and an undulating pink tongue that curled up like a panther’s. Her hair was more processed than Velveeta and whiter than a pair of Cloroxed Hanes 100-percent-cotton jockey shorts. There was no question but that Wade’s blonde was Dwight’s idea of the dream he’d waited his whole life to meet: She was young and hip and glamorous, she was as stacked as Anna Nicole Smith, as tall as Brigitte Nielsen, as available as Belle Starr, and she was practically yipping like a coyote hot on a scent.

They were so involved with their virtual copulation—his manhood pushing his jeans out as far as they would go; her overdeveloped, suntanned pecs and biceps rippling beneath her fringed pony-hide halter top—they didn’t even notice me until I was almost right on top of them.

“Good morning, Deputy,” I said.

“Whoa, Marshal.” He turned with a big dizzy grin. “You snuck up on me. Didn’t hear you coming.”

“Right,” I said. “I nearly ran over you. Who’s your friend?”

“I’d like you to meet Mr. Gilhooly’s personal executive assistant, Tiffany.”

“Tiffany?”

“Tiffany West.” The girl uncoiled herself and got out of the car, making Dwight draw in a ragged breath. Her legs were as long as I was tall, and they were wrapped in super-tight, pinto-pony-hide chaps.

“What’s your real name?”

“Who’s askin’?” Her voice was throaty and she was talking to me, but her eyes were on Dwight, looking as if she was thinking about eating him for lunch.

“You’d better tell her,” Dwight said. “You don’t want to make the marshal mad.”

She looked at me and actually scoffed. “That little bitty thing?”

“You better tell her. Believe me, she gets mad and all hell breaks loose. She’s The Man.”

“Okay, I’ll tell her. I don’t want no problem with ‘The Man.’ ” With that she laughed and punched me playfully in the shoulder.

I wasn’t laughing.

“Alice Houston,” she offered quickly when she figured out Dwight wasn’t laughing, either, and then the words started rushing out and I was afraid she’d never shut up. “But when I went to body-building school in Denver so I could get my routine worked out, you know, get it refined and get sculpted and get enough poise to enter the Miss Wyoming Body Builder USA Pageant, the scout from
Penthouse
told me I’d never get anywhere named Alice Houston. So he told me about this radical procedure how people get their names for like porno movies. You know what I’m talking about?”

“No,” I said.

“Yeah, I can tell by looking at you, you’ve got no clue.”