If Mashed Potatoes Could Dance (19 page)

“Please, just a teeny bit of snooping,” I finally said.

“Why’s this diary so important anyway? Sally Swarthmore was a horrible person. Why do you care?”

Sally harrumphed and pouted.

“I’ve become suddenly interested in some of Broken Rope’s past infamous characters,” I said, embarrassed at my unnatural, false tone. “Hey! That’s it, that’s what you can do. You can tell her you’ve become interested in history, too. Why didn’t I think of this before? She loves to talk about herself. You don’t have to snoop at all. Just prompt her a bit and she’ll go on and on. No one loves Opie more than Opie loves Opie.”

Teddy sent me one raised eyebrow and a slanted mouth. I probably should have remembered the adage about catching more flies with honey than with vinegar.

“You’re not very good at this,” Sally said to me.

“I’m sorry, Teddy. I’m so used to…well, I need to try to be kinder to Opie especially if you and she are…dating,” I said as sincerely as I could. It was work.

“Better,” Sally said.

“What would it hurt to ask her a few questions? I’m not asking you to betray her trust. I simply would like to see if by some wild and bizarre circumstance, she has that diary. You know she would never, ever give me a straight answer. I
don’t even want you to take it from her.”
Yet
, I added in my head. “Please just find out if she has it.”

Teddy sighed heavily and ran his hand through his hair. Sally purred or growled or something. “If—I mean
if
it’s convenient or good timing, I’ll ask her about it, but I can’t make any promises.”

“Yipee!” Sally squealed.

“Thank you, little brother.”

“You’re welcome,” he said begrudgingly. “I’ll call you if I find anything. Don’t call me and keep asking me. I’ll get to it when I get to it.”

“Oh,” Sally said. “I have no sense that I’m leaving soon, but it could be at any minute. Ask him to hurry. Please.”

I ate a little more humble pie and said, “Thanks, Teddy. The sooner the better, though. I’m
really
curious.”

“Goodness, Isabelle Winston, you need another hobby. Go chase Cliff or something.” Teddy winked and then hopped into his truck.

“Thank you, Betts. You’ll owe him if he comes up with something,” Sally said.

“Better owing him than Opie.” I smiled.

My original plan was to go back downtown and stay with
Jake. I doubted I would catch someone dropping off another note, but my presence at the sheriff’s office might help his state of mind. He had shows, though, and those would keep him busy enough that he wouldn’t dwell too much on whatever might happen next. I decided on a side trip, instead, but was further diverted when Sally asked me to do some grooming around her tombstone.

The cemetery next to the cooking school wasn’t the most famous in town, and it wasn’t in the town’s budget to send a landscape maintenance crew out every week. I remembered seeing a couple guys out here the day the bus had come in, but they hadn’t done a very thorough job and I knew we wouldn’t see them for another month.

The cemetery wasn’t large, but it was too big for me to take on as my responsibility. Lately, I had taken some extra
time around Jerome’s tombstone, though. There wasn’t much to do except keep the grass trimmed, but nicely trimmed grass made a pleasant difference. Sometimes, tourists left items of remembrance on the tombstones or on the graves themselves. Over the years, I’d found a number of toy water guns around Jerome’s grave. I kept them in a box in the cooking school; when the supply built up, I passed them on either to kids in town or to Broken Rope actors who were lacking weapons.

Sally’s gifts were usually drawings of axes with handwritten messages scrawled underneath. Mostly, the messages were, not surprisingly, not friendly. But despite the way people felt about what she’d done, she was a legend. She did have the support of a small contingent of pro-Sally people, people who were convinced she was innocent and had been wrongly convicted. As I clipped the grass around her tombstone with some scissors, it occurred to me that I should maybe try to find one or two of those people. Long shot though it might be, perhaps they’d know something about her diary. Why was someone pro-Sally, and what did they base their feelings on?

I still didn’t believe that Sally’s old diary existed, not with her body in her grave, not in Opie’s house, not even with a group of Sally cheerleaders. But I really wanted it to exist. I wanted to know what it said, and I wanted to know what reasons she might have used to justify killing her parents, if in fact, those reasons existed.

“Yes, that looks better,” Sally said as she stood back and observed my work. “Thank you, Betts.”

“You’re welcome.” I stood beside her and decided it was, indeed, an improvement.

Sally’s tombstone was shorter than most of the others. It was just a cleanly carved, rectangular block of dark granite engraved with Sally’s name and birth and death dates.
Because it was short, it was one of the few tombstones that didn’t lean from time and weather.

“Is it weird knowing your body is right there?” I asked.

“No.” Sally laughed. “I’ve forgotten whatever that attachment felt like. I do like the grass on top of it to be neat, though. I think I must have been a very neat person.”

“Well, this whole place could use some attention. I’m glad I could help some.” I decided that I would ask the town officials to send the grooming guys out more often. I might even take advantage of my renewed friendship—and potentially more—with Cliff to have the police push the issue.

Although, even I had to admit that with the less than perfectly level grass, the tall old trees all around, and some leaning tombstones, the place held a certain charm, something a little eerie but a little fairy-tale-like, too. Still, the charm wouldn’t be too tarnished if the grass was better mowed. I’d figure it out.

I plunked my hands on my hips. “I gotta go, Sally. You want to come with me?”

“Where’re you going?”

“The hotel. I need to talk to some foodies.”

“No, thanks. I’d like to spy on some people—maybe Jake, maybe your brother. I’ll keep my eyes off your boyfriend, though.”

The words
He’s not my boyfriend—yet
ran through my mind, but I felt silly saying them, so I just said, “Suit yourself,” as she disappeared.

As I carried the scissors back into the school, something tickled at the back of my neck. I turned and scanned the entire cemetery. It was sunny and warm; the trees caused numerous shadowed spots and could have hidden any number of beings, creatures both dead and alive, but I didn’t see anyone.

I sniffed deeply but smelled only greenery and dusty humidity. There was nothing unusual about the smell. There was no wood smoke, and the mysterious scent I’d recently noticed wasn’t there either.

“Hello?” I said, just in case.

I got no response.

Gram was happy to be left cleaning with one of her crushes, Tim McGraw, whose voice rattled the old small radio she had plugged into an outlet beside a stove. I tried to contain a smile when she did a little hip twist as she sang along the words, “She was killin’ me in that miniskirt,” but I couldn’t help myself. The cleaning was good therapy and helped move her back into her groove. I asked her to lock the door when I left. And though she said I was being “as silly as a one-eyed toad,” I could tell she thought it was a good idea.

The Tied and Branded Hotel was a booming facility in the summer. Though the exterior decor consisted of old wood planks, worn leather saddles, and wound ropes, it was a modern hotel with a pool as big and lavish as that in a big-city five-star resort. I joked to myself that I’d probably find Cece by the side of it in a bikini that fit her perfectly.

Surprisingly, it was more a premonition than a joke. She was there, her bikini a bright green, and it did look perfect on her. She wore huge black sunglasses and sat perfectly posed with an umbrellaed drink in one hand and the opposite knee bent up at just the right angle.

The pool was busy but not as busy as I’d seen it on the hottest, most humid days. I was wearing shorts and a nicer T–shirt, so I was easy to spot as I swung open the pool’s gate and walked purposefully toward the beauty in the green suit. She saw me immediately; I could tell because her head and big bug eyes were turned in my direction. Her drink had been
on the way to her mouth, but it retreated and she adjusted her head slightly, as if looking away from me.

I smiled and waved. She did, too, after a beat’s hesitation.

“Hi, Cece,” I said when I reached her. I stood just so I shaded her sun. “How’re you holding up?”

“I’m okay, I suppose. I can’t believe I’m stuck in this ridiculous little town while my husband is nowhere to be found.”

There were some people I would never understand. It wasn’t too long ago that I realized those same people probably didn’t understand me either. Our first meeting had told me that Cece was most likely one of those people. The fact that she was sitting out by the pool and trying to relax as her husband was missing sealed the deal. If my husband, or anyone I cared for, for that matter, were missing, I’d be a wreck. I’d throw myself into looking for that person or into some physical activity that kept my body moving so much that my mind wouldn’t have time to think about how awful I felt.

I certainly wouldn’t be sitting out by a pool in a skimpy swimsuit; that option wouldn’t even cross my mind.

“I’m sorry about your husband. I know the police are doing everything they can to find him.”

“Right. They’re quite the crew of crack detectives. I’m sure they’ll solve it in no time at all.” She sipped her drink.

I forced myself not to shake my head as I took a seat in the lounge chair next to her.

“Have the police talked to you?” I asked.

“Yes. I’ve been questioned and questioned and questioned again. I’ve been as honest as I could be. I told them that I’m just Ash’s arm candy, that our marriage is purely a business deal, that I’m nicely compensated for being his wife. I didn’t lie. I told the whole ugly truth, and yet they think I’m hiding
something from them. If I’m willing to tell them all…that, why would they think I was keeping something to myself?”

I swallowed. “That’s pretty honest.”

She looked at me. I couldn’t see her eyebrows, but I thought they were probably raised. “Come on, you knew that. Anyone with even the minutest observation skills would know that.”

“Well. I. Uh.”

“We don’t hide it from anyone. It’s not a secret. Ash and I think it’s best that way.”

I thought a minute. “Maybe the police think you got rid of your husband so you could have full access to his money.” I figured if she was being honest, why shouldn’t I?

“As I’ve explained to the police, I don’t profit from Ash’s death or his disappearance. Our agreement is only good while he’s alive. I’ve signed all the papers. Once he’s gone, so’s my gravy train.” She took another sip, no, a big gulp, of the drink. “I hope they find him soon. Alive.”

I suddenly thought that a nice drink with an umbrella might not be such a bad idea, but I resisted.

“What about the dynamics of the tour group?” I asked. I had no reason to think Cece would answer any of my questions, but she’d just told me things that very few people would ever share. Why not tell me whatever else I wanted to know?

Though, as when I’d sat down with Stuart, Georgina, and Leroy, I wasn’t sure what my questions were. I remembered Jim once asking me for a
snapshot
summary of my day. Maybe I thought that having a snapshot of the tour group would help me understand what might have happened.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Do you all get along?”

“Heavens no. Particularly me. I don’t really like any of
them, but I’ve gone with them every year for five years because it’s what Ash likes to do.”

More and more I wished for my own sunglasses, and that drink sure did look refreshing. “The first day when you arrived, I heard that Robert Hart lost his wallet. Did he find it?”

“I didn’t know he lost it, but he loses things all the time. So does Ash, particularly his wallet. He’s a flake. These men with all this money. You’d think they’d take better care of it.”

“I went on the bus that day. I was looking for the driver, Leroy, but he wasn’t there. I saw something strange. It looked like someone’s purse had been emptied out on one of the seats. It seemed weird,” I said.

“What do you mean? What did you see?”

“Some money, a comb, a notebook, a glittery lipstick container, stuff like that.”

The way she cocked her head as she looked at me made me think she was about to say something important, but then she seemed to reconsider. She turned her attention toward the pool and sipped at the drink again. “That’s weird,” she finally said.

“Uh–huh. Know anything about that?”

“No. Nothing.”

“I see.” I had no idea how to strong-arm, so I chose another route. “So, how was your dinner last night?”

“A Snickers bar and a Diet Pepsi? It was delish, thanks for asking.”

“Didn’t you go to Bunny’s yesterday?” Hadn’t Bunny told me she’d seen her?