Sharon Love Cook - Granite Cove 01 - A Nose for Hanky Panky (17 page)

He stopped to gaze out at the wharf where the hulk of an old steel trawler clanked and shuddered with each roll of the sea. “Vivian was always trying to improve me. I loved Chuck Norris movies, but there I was in Cambridge, watching French films with subtitles.” He shook his head in wonder. “Going out to dinner was a goddamn etiquette lesson. ‘Don’t use the salad fork with your dessert,’” she’d instruct me.

“Did you mind?” I asked.

“Nah. I gotta admit those lessons stuck with me. For instance, the other night I was at The Sacred Cod, passing through the restaurant section to the bar. I saw some guy eating a steak and holding his knife like a friggin’ spear. I stopped and said, ‘Were you raised by pit bulls?’” Then I showed him how it’s done. He wasn’t too happy, but I’ll bet he remembers.”

“What caused the eventual break-up?”

“It was the parents, mostly the old man. She insisted on me meeting them. I was dead against it. We’d been going out a couple months when she asked me to dinner at her house. That’s probably the reason for the etiquette lessons, preparation for meeting the parents. At the time, Vivian made it sound casual, like it would be hot dogs and beans on TV trays. Was that ever wrong.”

I unscrewed the cap and poured more scotch into his cup. “What was it like, meeting the Klingers?”

“What was it like?” He took a sip and sighed. “In the first place, their house was a mansion straight out of
Gone with the Wind.
Red brick with big white columns, an acre of lawn in front. Seeing it for the first time, I was scared shitless. It didn’t help that a maid answered the door. If I hadn’t had a couple drinks in the car on the way over, I would have turned and run away.” He wiped his mouth. “Maybe I should have.”

“What happened?”

“The maid took me to this big room with a fireplace where Vivian and her parents were sitting, all three on a little sofa. Right away I figured the old man was trouble. He was a little guy, and he looked at me like I had fish scales stuck in my hair. That whole friggin’ night he watched me like I was gonna steal the silverware.”

I laughed at his description of Lawrence Klinger. “What about Mrs. Klinger?”

He whistled. “She was quietly wasted. All through dinner everyone pretended not to notice she was sliding out of her chair. Vivian and her father were at one end of the table arguing about politics, while the old lady sat across from me playing footsie under the table.”

“No! Mrs. Klinger?”

“The same. Three nights later she called my dorm, wanted to meet me at the Colonnade Hotel for a drink.”

“Did you go?”

He gave me a withering look. “I might be crazy, but I’m not stupid.”

“Did Vivian know about her mother calling you?”

“I never told her. The way I see it, the mother was jealous. Vivian was daddy’s girl. Vivian was brilliant, going to take over Klinger Pharmaceuticals, the family business. The old lady felt neglected.”

I remembered Mrs. Klinger’s empty eyes and felt a renewed pity. “Why do you think Vivian moved to Granite Cove?”

“She loved it the minute she saw it. One day we borrowed the old man’s boat. He kept it moored in Weymouth. When we sailed into Granite Cove harbor, Vivian said, ‘This is where I’m going to live someday.’”

“How did it end between you?”

Instead of answering, he turned his empty cup upside down. I poured more scotch. The bottle was a third empty. Rusty closed his eyes and continued. “What happened was, the old man went on a campaign to get rid of me. He wanted his darling to marry someone from Harvard or his
alma mater
MIT, not some loser from the wharves of Granite Cove.

“He threatened to cut off her tuition payments unless she saw a shrink. I guess he figured she must be crazy or on drugs, going out with me. To keep the old man happy, Vivian saw a shrink.”

I sat up straight. “Do you remember the doctor’s name?”

He shrugged. “Some guy with an office on Newbury Street. According to the old man, the shrink was smarter than Freud himself.”

“Was it Dr. Bingham? Chandler Bingham?”

“Yeah, that sounds right. He was a friend of the family. I heard him once on her answering machine. He talked like bloody Prince Charles. Anyway, to get daddy off her ass, Vivian made an appointment to see the shrink.” Rusty laughed out loud and slapped his knee.

“What’s so funny?”

“Just thought of something. Gee, this stuff sure improves my memory.”

I got the hint and poured more. “What do you remember?”

“One day I met Vivian after her appointment with Dr. Bing Bing, or whatever he’s called. We met at a little French restaurant near his office on Newbury Street. Vivian was upset and wouldn’t tell me what was wrong at first. After a couple glasses of wine, she talked.

“She said that during therapy she always sat in a leather recliner while Bing Bing sat to the side, taking notes. On that day he was awfully quiet, so she turned around and caught him napping with his hand down his pants.

“That was it. She got out of the chair and marched out the door. At the same time she asked herself what in hell was she doing talking to some creep just to please her father. She wasn’t gonna pay the price anymore. She didn’t need the old man’s money, and she didn’t want to run the family business. She wanted to help women learn to kick butt.”

“Did her father cut her off?”

He nodded. “Vivian applied for scholarships and got a research job. She did it all herself.” He sighed. “It’s funny how things work out. The old man sent her to therapy to straighten out her head, which she did, but not in the way he expected.”

Now, while Brandi and I talked, I watched her boss approach, a pained smile upon her face. “Brandi, the shrimp bowls need more ice,” she announced. Before the woman could whisk the
hors d’oeuvres
tray from Brandi’s hands, I made a seagull dive for the remaining pastries.

“I’ll take care of it,” Brandi said, giving me a wink.

I grabbed her wrist before she headed to the kitchen. “Call me if you learn anything, and keep that information to yourself.” She nodded and followed her boss into the kitchen. I watched her go. Brandi was an odd combination of street smarts and childlike idealism. Although she was convinced of Rusty’s innate goodness, I remained skeptical. His tale about Spencer Farley asleep in the Harbour Building parking lot sounded far-fetched. Moreover, if Rusty had been at the park that night, he was drinking. What kind of witness is that?

Clutching a glass of champagne, I wandered through the rooms downstairs, searching for Kevin. Many of the guests had moved to the buffet. I longed to join them but didn’t want to get in line alone. I decided to check upstairs and at the same time take a peek at Raul’s famous bed.

I crept up the narrow back stairs to the second floor. A long corridor ran the length of the house with four bedrooms on either side. It was so quiet you could have heard a tick fall. I tiptoed down the dim hallway, passing over-decorated bedrooms. The wallpaper and curtains were covered with billowy roses and peonies.

At the end of the hall I stopped at what appeared to be the master bedroom. A king-size bed with a canopy looked sumptuous. In a corner of the room was a pink satin lounge chair straight out of
Sunset Boulevard.

I approached a wide window. Out on the horizon, pinpoints of light, ships at sea, bobbed in an ocean of black. As I gazed at the view, I became aware of a strange sound coming from across the room.

I turned on a small bedside lamp and searched until I found the source of the peculiar noise. On the floor next to the master bed sat a miniature carved wooden bed. Lying upon it and snoring like a Rottweiler was Raul. I watched until a voice startled me:

“Rose! I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

It was Kevin, standing in the doorway and looking like he’d been mugged. His hair jutted in all directions and his shirt hung out; his bow tie was askew. I stared at him. “What happened to you?”

Instead of answering, he motioned me to follow, disappearing down the dark hallway. I turned out the light and stood in the doorway; he was nowhere to be seen. I stared down the long corridor. “Kevin, where are you?”

“Here!” A beckoning hand emerged from the gloom. I walked to the end of the hall. He was in a small room, undoubtedly a maid’s years ago. He pulled me inside and locked the door behind me. We stood nose to nose in the dark.

“What’s going on?” I whispered.

“Mrs. Phipps attacked me.”

“She what?”

“We’ve got to get out of here. The woman’s insane.”

I took his hand, guiding him to the single narrow bed. “Sit and tell me from the beginning.”

He sat, hunched. Light from a window illuminated his face. “You know how she asked me to fix the pantry light? As soon as I followed her into this tiny dark room, she was all over me like a pit bull. It was pitch black and I kept banging into pots and knocking into things. The whole time I was scared stiff the husband would open the door. He’s probably got a gun to go with that cowboy hat.”

“Kevin, I can’t believe it. What did you do?”

“It’s true. I was struggling for my life, fighting her off with one hand and with the other, searching for the doorknob. All the while she was going,‘Take me now.’” He stopped to let out a shuddering breath. Silently, I contemplated the vivid scene he’d described. Although the story was outlandish, his distress was real. He broke the silence. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

I opened my mouth to speak, and a giggle emerged. It turned into wild, hysterical laughter. When I couldn’t stop, he covered my mouth with his hand and pulled me down on the bed. “Please, be quiet,” he whispered in my ear. “She’ll hear us. She’s stalking me.”

I giggled again and finally stopped. We listened, straining our ears for sounds outside the door, but all was quiet. Downstairs, the piano played “Over the Rainbow.” The music mingled with laughter from the terrace and the clinking of glassware. Remembering the platters of food warming on the buffet table, I turned to Kevin. “I’m starved. Let’s go down and eat.”

“In a minute. What’s that perfume you’re wearing?”

“It’s called Kenzo.”

“It’s wonderful.”

“It smells like fresh mown grass, don’t you think?”

“It smells sexy.”

I stared at him in the dim light. His face got closer. Soon he pressed his lips to mine. We kissed, each one lasting longer until I felt his hand tug at the zipper of my dress. I opened my eyes. “Kevin, not here.”

“Shh. The door’s locked. No one’s coming.”

“But they expect us for dinner. I’m the guest of honor.”

“Hush,” he whispered, brushing the hair from my forehead. “Hush.”

A gentle breeze stirred the window curtain, carrying in the achingly familiar smell of the sea. Outside, gentle waves lapped the rocks below. Down the hall in another darkened room, a little dog slept. Beneath us on the terrace, music and laughter floated out across the water. But in the little room at the end of the hall, Kevin and I drifted away in a world of our own.

“Rose, you’ve created some excitement with this pig story, but will Stella approve?” Yvonne, hunched at her desk, was in the process of giving our latest and biggest issue a quick preview.

“I don’t see why not,” I said, grabbing a copy from the stack. I immediately flipped to my story: “Do they Dare? Seniors Vow to Honor Prank Night.” After laboring over a feature, I still get a kick out of seeing the printed results. When I no longer feel that sense of excitement, it’s time to look for another job.

Yvonne pointed to the picture of Stella brandishing her spatula. “She looks positively menacing.” Underneath was Stella’s quote: “Whoever lays a hand on my pigs will end up in the sausage.”

I studied the layout, the work of a small Midwestern printing company. The bigger commercial presses had gotten too expensive for our small town paper, and no wonder, considering the rising cost of pulp. Our publisher keeps expenses down by hiring college interns and other money-saving measures.

“What do you think of Cal’s picture?” I asked. Behind the mirrored sunglasses his expression was inscrutable, although the set of his jaw said don’t screw with me.

“He can put those handcuffs on me any day,” Yvonne said. I turned to stare at her, open mouthed. She looked up, annoyed. “Don’t give me that look. Just because I’m a widow doesn’t mean I lack… feelings.”

“Of course not.”

She folded the issue. “All in all I think it’s effective. Maybe the young people will read it and forget about this prank nonsense.” She peered at me over the top of her glasses. “Your tone was somewhat taunting, Rose. Was that your intention?”

“I don’t know. Prank Night comes once in a kid’s life. I’m all for letting them have a little fun before joining the real world.”

“That’s all well and good, but it won’t pay to antagonize Stella. She’s a tough cookie. Once I took Mother to her restaurant for breakfast. When I inquired about the sodium content of an entree, Stella indicated we could leave.”

“She’s not into the healthy eating craze, but in answer to your question, Stella doesn’t mind getting publicity. It’s good for business. And regardless of what happens, Cal will be guarding the pigs during Prank Night. He claims that violators will spend the night in jail, courtesy of the Granite Cove Police Department.”

Yvonne shook her head. “I just don’t understand young people today. Don’t they have anything constructive to do?”

“Yvonne, don’t you remember that period in your life before high school graduation? You knew things would soon change. Nothing would ever be the same again. Friends you spent every moment with for the last four years would go their separate ways. Didn’t it make you want to do something crazy, if only for one night?”

She gave me a blank look. I realized it was a foolish question to ask of someone who wears lavender espadrilles. “Don’t forget I went to Catholic schools,” she said, “where we got probation for swearing. If you think Stella is tough, you should have met Sister Florene. When she spotted a hickey on Sherry Moscarelli’s neck, she made that girl scrub it with holy water in front of the entire parish.”