String of Lies Page 8

  Jo made a few more turns at Loralee’s direction and finally pulled up to a long building with multiple roof lines that stretched beyond view. A large sign identified it as Pheasant Run Active Adult Living. “This is it,” Jo said.

  “Pheasant Run,” Loralee sighed. “What an appropriate name. Just looking at it makes me want to run.”

  “Where did that ‘open mind’ run off to?”

  Loralee smiled. “You’re right. And I’m trying very hard to be positive.”

  “Maybe focus on the “active” part of it. That doesn’t suggest anything near an assisted living or nursing home, does it?”

  “No, but who knows if they don’t have a section in the back named, ‘Cooked Goose’. At Jo’s wry look, Loralee smiled and shrugged. She reached for her door handle. “Might as well get started.”

  Jo opened her own door, feeling no need to call out, “Wait for me,” what with Loralee’s attitude definitely that of a woman being dragged kicking and screaming. Her ever-perfect manners, however, would never permit such a rude display. They managed to make their way into the building and to the open office door of the building manager, Angie Palmer.

  “You must be Mrs. Phillips,” a cheery, red-haired woman of about fifty bounced up from behind a desk to greet them.

  Loralee solemnly admitted that indeed she was, and shook the woman’s hand. She introduced Jo.

  “How nice of you,” Angie said to Jo, “to bring your mother.”

  “No,” Jo hastened to correct her, catching the fleeting troubled look that crossed Loralee’s face. “Loralee’s daughter is in Seattle right now. I’m just a friend.”

  “A very dear friend,” Loralee added.

  “Wonderful. Well, let me show you around, and then I can answer any questions you might have. All right?”

  Jo and Loralee both nodded and dutifully got behind their enthusiastic guide. She led them through the model one-bedroom “Cardinal”, then opened up a folder showing sketches of the two-bedroom “Blue Jay”, and the super-sized three bedroom “Oriole”.

  At one point, when Angie took a quick call on her cell phone, Loralee whispered to Jo, “I’m really hoping she doesn’t say something about building a little nest here.”

  “I’m wondering about the nest egg it might take to buy one,” Jo whispered back, smiling. She had been impressed with features such as hardwood floors, marble vanities and deluxe appliances.

  “Now let me show you our wonderful amenities,” Angie said, leading them briskly out of the “Cardinal”. Loralee and Jo agreeably followed behind.

  “This is our state-of-the-art fitness center!” Angie announced as she opened the door to an impressive array of treadmills, exercise bikes, and a few other machines for which Jo had no name nor idea as to their function. A single grey-haired man worked a rowing machine near the back as he gazed upward at a television tuned to CNN.

  Jo could picture Ina Mae making use of the place, but she wasn’t all that sure about Loralee. Loralee didn’t look all that sure herself.

  Angie, perhaps sensing the disinterest, said, “And then, we have our Great Room.” She took them to a large bright room with scattered tables and chairs, a wall of shelves filled with books, and an unoccupied bar with stools. A few people relaxed around the tables, and Jo thought it all looked very pleasant.

  “Our residents use this for a variety of things. It’s great for the occasional large party, but as you see it has its quiet times too.”

  “Loralee Phillips! Is that you?” A round-shaped woman seated at one of the tables with three others, all holding cards, called out.

  “Why Betty Kidwell!” Loralee cried. “I had no idea you lived here.”

  “Bought a “Cardinal” last May,” Betty said proudly. “Last winter’s heavy snow just about did me in. I couldn’t get my own car out of my garage what with always needing someone to clear the driveway for me. You looking to buy, Loralee? If you do, you won’t need your car anymore. I got rid of mine. The shuttle bus takes us anywhere we want to go.”

  But I love my car! Jo could almost hear Loralee thinking, but what came out of her mouth was a polite, “I’ll remember that.” Loralee introduced Jo to Betty, and Betty in turn named her table companions.

  “You’re that arts-and-crafts lady, aren’t you,” one of the women asked. Thin, with unnaturally dark hair, she’d been introduced to Jo as ‘Donna’.

  Jo confessed that she was.

  “Angie,” Donna enthused, “you should have Jo come and teach a few craft classes. They’d go over big! I always wanted to sign up for one of your workshops, Jo, but I always seem so darn busy. If you came here, though, I wouldn’t have any excuse, would I? I could just walk over and plop myself down.”

  “Jo gives wonderful workshops,” Loralee said. She pulled back her hair to show her earrings. “I made these at her last one.”

  The ladies oohed over the earrings, impressed.

  “I’ve been dying to try beading,” Donna cried. “Angie, let’s get her over here!”

  “We’ll definitely look into it,” Angie said, smiling at Jo.

  Jo was mentally running over her schedule, wondering if she could fit another workshop in, when Betty said, “Angie, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Is Parker Holt’s death going to change anything with our condo management?”

  “Parker Holt?” Jo asked. “Is he connected to Pheasant Run?”

  “Why, he built the place!” Betty said with some surprise.

  “It shouldn’t affect us at all,” Angie assured Betty. “Parker Holt turned over care of the property to C & A Management. Everything will continue on smoothly, don’t worry.”

  “More smoothly, I hope, than what went on with that first management company.” A third woman at the table, Celia, who had been silent until now, said. All eyes turned toward Celia, and she explained. “Ralph and I were one of the first to move in here. “I remember hearing about some terrible rows between Parker Holt and the woman who first managed here. There were even threats of a lawsuit, which, as far as I know, never materialized.”

  Celia’s tablemates’ eyes bugged with interest, but Angie Palmer looked highly uneasy. “I haven’t shown you our swimming pool yet,” she said to Loralee and Jo, moving coaxingly away from the table.

  Loralee agreed that she hadn’t, and, as she and Jo took their leave from the table of card players, Jo decided she could definitely find time in her busy schedule to come back to Pheasant Run.

  CHAPTER 10

  "Well, Loralee,” Jo asked as they drove away from Pheasant Run. “What do you think?” She thought she knew what the answer would be, not having seen any increased interest in Loralee toward moving there, despite her admitting at one point that it had very pleasant living conditions, and encountering old acquaintances.

  .Loralee shook her head. “That place is just not me!”

  Jo nodded, almost understanding. That, however, didn’t solve Loralee’s problem of wanting her daughter to return to Abbotsville.

  “Could your daughter and her husband just find another house?” Jo asked.

  “Nothing the size of mine at a price they could afford,” Loralee said. “And Dulcie says she has such happy memories of growing up in this house that she wants her children to have the same. I can’t fault her for that, can I Jo? It’s a wonderful compliment from your child to be told she loved her childhood.”

  Jo agreed that it was, but it also seemed that Dulcie was exacting a high price for her compliment. Jo couldn’t tell Loralee what to do, though. She could only support her in whatever she decided. She dropped Loralee off at her house and declined her repeated offer of tea and home-made cake with sincere regret.

  “I’d love to, Loralee. But it’s grown late and Randy will be waiting for me.” Jo then drove off, Loralee’s profuse thanks for accompanying her to Pheasant Run ringing in her ears. When she turned onto Main, Jo saw Randy sitting in a battered tan pick-up in front of her store, boards of lumber visible in the back. As she pulled up
behind, he hopped out holding his tool box.

  “I hope you weren’t waiting long,” Jo said, greeting him.

  Randy shook his head. “Just a couple of minutes.”

  Jo unlocked the shop’s door and held it open as Randy brought in his supplies. The increased level of assurance she had noticed at the end of their first meeting seemed to have dipped, as Randy showed a certain nervousness. She hoped it was simply his lack of social skills making him uneasy once again, not a lack of carpentry skills. Loralee had been confident of his ability to do the job, and Jo crossed her fingers that she was right.

  “We’d better move these boxes out of the way,” Jo said as they entered the stockroom, referring to the boxes of beads, papers, dried flowers and other supplies that she had taken down from the sagging shelves.

  “Where do you want them?” Randy asked, instantly reaching for a large, heavy-looking box.

  “Out front is the only place, for now,” Jo said, and began making space in the shop area. She carried out what she could herself, and watched carefully after the lighter, more crushable items as Randy rushed boxes out and stacked them, perhaps in an effort to demonstrate efficiency. She hoped he would be able to settle down. She wanted shelves that would last, not put up slap-dash.

  But fairly soon, as Randy began measuring and marking wood, Jo saw that he had found his focus. He promised the job would be done in time to move everything back to the storeroom before her shop reopened the following day, and Jo nodded, glad to be reassured in more ways than one. She settled herself down at her desk to work on her bills while hearing the thumps, bumps, and the occasional whine of an electric saw in her stockroom.

  When her stomach signaled it was past lunch time, Jo called out, “I’m going to run down to the Abbot’s Kitchen, Randy. Can I get you something?”

  After a short wait she heard, “I’m all right. Well, maybe just a Coke or something.”

  “I’ve got that right here and should have offered it. Want one now?”

  “Yeah, great. Thanks.”

  Jo pulled a Coke out of her small refrigerator and carried it into the stockroom. Randy set down his level and took the can, popping it open.

  “How’s it going?” Jo asked. She could see at least one freshly cut shelf set in place.

  “Pretty good.” Randy took one long drink, then looked like he wanted to get back to work, so Jo left him to it. She pulled on her warm jacket and headed out the door.

  On her short walk down Main, Jo came to Frannie’s floral shop which stood dark and empty. Frannie had apparently vacated during the busy-ness of the last couple of days and taken off for parts unknown. Blank windows looked into a dim, flowerless interior, and a phrase Jo had read somewhere popped into her head: like dead eyes looking out of a soul-less body. Jo shivered at the bleak thought. Would her own shop look like that once her lease ran out?

  She continued on to the Abbot’s Kitchen, checking around for signs of other business mortalities and thankfully finding nothing more. Jim Wald’s little book store displayed a fresh supply of bestsellers in its window, though the windows of Lily’s Dress Shop looked somewhat dreary. That, however, was not unusual for Lily’s, whose styles leaned toward last-decade-funereal. At the Kitchen, after giving her order to Ruthie and adding, on second thought, a ham and cheese for Randy, Jo asked, “Have you and Bert made any decisions about selling?”

  Ruthie shook her head. “We don’t know, now, who we’d be selling to, do we? I mean, who’s going to take over his business now that Parker Holt is dead, and what will their plans be?”

  “I presume Mallory Holt inherits the business,” Jo said. “But I don’t know if she’ll hold onto it. I’m not having any luck finding out if Max McGee sold my building to Holt’s corporation, but I’m not sure if Mallory would know. Has she been involved in the day-to-day operations?”

  “Mallory was involved with a lot of things,” a voice behind Jo said, startling her. She hadn’t been aware of anyone coming in. Alexis Wigsley, who was clearly very good at creeping up on people, smiled slyly at Jo. “But making money wasn’t one of them. Now spending it…”

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Wigsley,” Ruthie said, somewhat stiffly. “May I take your order?”

  “Shrimp salad on a croissant, Ruthie.”

  Jo remembered what Ina Mae had mentioned, and said to Alexis, “I’ve heard one thing Mallory Holt was pretty involved with was the Abbotsville Women’s Club.”

  “Oh, yes,” Alexis agreed. “She’s been our president these last few months. Mallory’s the one behind our club’s decision to purchase red, white and blue flowers to plant about the base of the statue of General Jeremiah Boggsworth in the park. Quite an exciting idea, isn’t it?”

  Unsure if Alexis was being sarcastic or not, Jo simply nodded.

  “In fact,” Alexis continued, “I was at the committee meeting with her Monday to discuss that and other things, when she got the call about Parker.”

  “You were?” This was one thing Jo had wanted to look into – the whereabouts of Mallory Holt that afternoon.

  “Didn’t I mention that at the shop yesterday? Yes, Mallory asked Sally Robinson to hold the committee meeting. Very inconvenient, I thought, even though Sally lives in Mallory’s neighborhood. Sally’s driveway, though, is being repaired and we had to park on the street a good distance away, and then dodge slush puddles to get to the house. But Mallory said she couldn’t hold the meeting herself because she would be coming from a shopping trip in Baltimore with her aunt, Lucy Kunkle, and wouldn’t have time to get anything ready.

  “Interesting, isn’t it? I mean, who knows what might or might not have happened if we’d all been at Mallory’s place instead of Sally Robinson’s?”

  Jo nodded. It was interesting. “Your meeting was all afternoon long?”

  “Oh, no. Mallory didn’t get back until three.”

  So Mallory, according to Alexis, was with her committee members from three until the time she got the police call, and with her aunt before that. Much too occupied to slip into her basement after Dan and Xavier left, to set up the deadly trap for her husband.

  “Turkey and bacon, and ham and cheese,” Ruthie announced, and Jo took her order and paid for it.

  “You and Carrie are working at the shop today?” Alexis asked, eying the two sandwiches.

  “No, the shop’s closed on Wednesdays as usual. But I’m getting some repair work done in the stockroom.”

  “Oh. Dan’s doing it for you?”

  Jo shook her head and had no real reason not to explain further, but she was just as glad when Ruthie called out, “Shrimp salad on croissant.”

  “Enjoy your lunch,” Jo said, and turned toward the door.

  “Oh, I will,” Alexis said, “just as I’m sure Mallory will be enjoying her lunch at Hollander’s with Sebastian Zarnik.” At Jo’s surprised, and, she was sure, blank look, Alexis’s lip curled, and she elaborated. “Her artist friend. Mallory always admired his art. Perhaps,” she said, her eyes innocently wide, “they’re getting their heads together to design a really nice tombstone for Parker.”

  <><><>

  Jo headed back to the Craft Corner, clutching the carry-out bag and thinking about Alexis’s final comments. Clearly they were dropped with the intention of stirring gossip. Was it credible, though? Ina Mae had warned that Alexis was more interested in a spicy story than an accurate one. At the thought of Ina Mae, it occurred to Jo that the senior center was located fairly near Hollander’s, a fine restaurant Jo knew about but had never dined in. With all the classes Ina Mae took at the senior center, might she currently be within quick checking distance? Jo pulled out her cell phone and punched in Ina Mae’s cell number – the one Jo had been so skeptical of ever needing.

  “Yes?”

  “Ina Mae, it’s Jo. Where are you?”

  “Waiting for a lecture on vitamin supplements at the center. Do you need me?”

  “Yes, but not for the shop.” Jo explained what Alexis had told her,
and heard disapproving noises coming across the distance from her friend. Ina Mae’s personal book of proper behavior clearly did not include a widow of only two days lunching alone with a single man.

  “Do you feel like running over to check on the story?” Jo asked. “Maybe Alexis forgot to mention that Lucy Kunkle was also along. Or possibly she, ah, created the whole story.”

  “I’m on my way,” Ina Mae said, and Jo heard the line go dead. She pictured Ina Mae sprinting out of the senior center in her blue warm-up, white hair flying, and smiled to herself. Ina Mae was never one to waste words – or time.

  Jo tucked her phone into her purse and entered the craft shop. She heard Randy thumping the walls of her stockroom, and headed on back there. “Time for a break,” she announced, holding up the lunch bag. “I brought you a ham and cheese. Hope that’s what you like.”

  Randy stared at her. “Ham and cheese. Uh, yeah, that’s great..”

  “Set your tools down and come on out. We can eat at my workshop table. Want another Coke with it?”

  “Uh, I, ah, I guess,” Randy stuttered out. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. It’s always been my opinion that a hungry workman is, well, a hungry workman. I imagine Tillie Watson isn’t big on packing lunches, huh?”

  Randy grabbed a rag and wiped at his hands, then finger-combed his hair out of his face as he came out of the stockroom. “How’d you know I’m at Tillie’s?”.

  “I was out with Loralee Phillips this morning and told her about the job you’d be doing for me today. She mentioned it.” Jo set the sandwiches on the table and pulled a Coke out of her refrigerator, handing it to Randy. She poured a mug of coffee for herself.

  “Mrs. Phillips,” Randy said, nodding. “She’s a nice lady.”

  “Yes, she is.” Jo unwrapped her turkey and bacon, and passed a couple of paper napkins to Randy. “But sometimes a little too nice for her own good, in my opinion.”