Two Guys Detective Agency (9 page)
reddish brown dog laying across her feet.
“It means he likes you,” Jarrod said with a laugh.
“I’m not a pet person,” Octavia said.
“Max is more than a pet — he’s a retired police bloodhound. He has medals and stuff.”
“Yeah, well, right now he’s just another male stepping on my toes,” she muttered.
“This is better than veggie sausage,” Maggie said with milk running down her chin. “You can make
breakfast every morning, Aunt Tavey.”
“Oh, no.” Octavia wagged her spoon. “I’m not staying. I have my own home.”
“Where?”
“Louisville.”
“Where’s that?”
“About an hour’s drive in that direction.” She waved vaguely in the air.
“Louisville Cardinals,” Jarrod added with a boo and a hiss.
Octavia nodded to his shirt. “You’re a UK fan, I see.”
He puffed up. “Yeah. I’m gonna play basketball for them someday.”
“I was a UK cheerleader.”
His eyes widened. “No kidding? Cool.”
“Where are your pom poms?” Maggie asked suspiciously.
“At my home,” Octavia returned.
“Can I have them?”
“You’re not supposed to ask for things,” Jarrod chided.
“It’s okay,” Octavia said. “If you don’t ask, you never know. But no, you can’t have my pom poms.
They’re
mine
.”
Maggie seemed unfazed. “Did you lose your husband?”
Touché
. “No. He just...went on vacation.”
“Without you?” Jarrod asked.
She frowned. “Don’t you two have to finish getting ready for school?”
“Can you fix our lunches?” Maggie asked.
Octavia wiped the milk from her mouth with her hand. “That depends — what do you want?”
“Marshmallows!”
“I can do that.” She looked at Jarrod. “How about you?”
He grinned. “Oreos.”
“Coming right up.” She dislodged Max and pushed to her feet, retrieved two paper bags from the stack
on the counter, then stuffed them full with the treats she found on the top shelf. This parenting thing wasn’t
so hard.
Jarrod looked out the window. “Here comes Mrs. Boyd, Maggie. Get your backpack.”
The kids scrambled, then ran for the front door, grabbing their lunch bags on the way. Octavia followed
them to the door, then walked out on the stoop, conceding she probably should know who her niece and
nephew left with. A heavy, stiff-looking woman she recognized as one of the people she’d herded out of
Linda’s house gaped up at her, then marched closer.
“Don’t you think you’re dressed rather inappropriately to be outside?”
Octavia looked down at the unfamiliar T-shirt sporting a smiley face and realized her La Perla
underwear was on display. “Nice to see you, too, um — ?”
“Nan Boyd. I escort the neighborhood kids to the bus stop. But I must say, I think it’s too soon for
Jarrod and Maggie to go back to school after what they’ve been through.”
“Well,” Octavia said sweetly, “thank goodness it’s none of your ding dang business.” She waved to the
kidlets, then went back into the house and slammed the door.
Now officially in a sour mood, she picked up the cordless phone and dialed Richard’s cell phone,
thinking if he didn’t recognize the number, he might answer.
He didn’t.
So she called their house.
“Habersham residence,” their maid Carla said.
Octavia frowned — she wasn’t as certain as Richard that Carla hadn’t stolen her watch. “Carla, it’s Mrs.
Habersham. Is my husband there, by chance?”
“Mr. Habersham? I thought he was with you in Lexington, ma’am.”
“He...um, was. But a business matter came up and he had to leave. I thought I might catch him at
home.”
“No, ma’am. I haven’t seen him. And the master bed wasn’t slept in last night.”
Octavia’s stomach tightened. “Oh...well, he must have pulled an all-nighter at the office, or been called
out of town. When you see him, will you please ask him to call me on my cell phone?”
“Of course, ma’am. Um...ma’am, when I got here this morning, there was a letter taped to the front
door.”
Octavia’s pulse picked up — had Richard left a note? “What kind of letter?”
“The envelope says it’s from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.”
She exhaled. “It’s probably about one of Mr. Habersham’s cases. Just leave it on his desk.”
“Yes, ma’am. Oh, and one more thing. The check you gave me this week...the bank wouldn’t cash it.”
Octavia swallowed a curse and forced false cheer into her voice. “Mr. Habersham moved some of our
bank accounts and forgot to tell me. He or I will pay you as soon as we see you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She disconnected the call and backtracked to the van in search of her purse while her heart trotted in
her chest. She checked her wallet for cash — a little over six hundred dollars. That wouldn’t last long. She
forced herself to tamp down the panic as she called to check account balances and the available limit on her
credit cards.
“Cancelled?”
“On hold?”
“Deactivated?”
“Closed?”
“Stopped?”
“Blocked?”
At the end of the stack, she had a Macy’s Department Store card that was still active, and a gas card. An
old savings account contained nine hundred dollars. Every other account was overdrawn or cancelled.
She had her jewelry case with her, but no way was she going to sell her good pieces.
Octavia brought her fist to her mouth. She had to get back to Louisville and figure out what was going
on.
A noise sounded from the hallway. She looked up to see Linda skid to a halt, still wearing yesterday’s
funeral dress, her eyes wide. “I overslept. Where are the kids?”
“Fed and on their way to the bus stop with your fat neighbor.”
“What about their lunches?”
“Don’t worry — I fixed them.”
Linda heaved a sigh. “Thank you. I need coffee.” She moved toward the coffeemaker and hit a series of
buttons. “How did you sleep?”
“That thing I woke up on is a torture device.”
“Sorry. Sullivan and I — ” Linda stopped and blanched. “We don’t have many guests.”
Octavia’s heart shifted. Damn Sullivan Smith for leaving her sister in a lurch. Damn men everywhere,
dammit. “Did you get some rest?”
“Some,” Linda said in an unconvincing voice. “Do I look as bad as you do?”
“Worse.”
“At least I don’t smell as bad as you do. Milk or sugar?”
“Do you have half and half?”
“I have milk and I have sugar. Wait — ” She held up the empty jug. “We’re out of milk.”
“I’ll have it black.”
Linda brought two mugs to the table and they sat in silence. There was too much to talk about, none of
it pleasant. The clutter of the demolitioned kitchen seem to close in on them. Octavia felt claustrophobic
and antsy, her mind swirling. Some of her conversation with Linda the previous night was starting to come
back to her. She’d been drunk, but it was no excuse for some of the things she’d said — no matter how
true. And she felt bad for Linda, but she didn’t want to get involved in her sister’s life. She had her own
problems to deal with.
Linda sipped. “Have you heard from Richard?”
Octavia sipped. “No.”
Linda sipped. “And you still don’t know why he left?”
Octavia sipped. “No.” Although she wondered now about the phone call he’d taken yesterday on the
drive here that had upset him...and later when she’d seen him sitting in the car talking on the phone,
gesturing in anger. Obviously their financial problems had reached a boiling point.
She could feel her sister’s censure wafting in her direction. And the longer the silence dragged on, the
more it rankled Octavia. Who was Linda to judge? “Go ahead...say it.”
Linda blinked. “Say what?”
“This is what I get for marrying Richard for his money.”
“I would never say that. Besides, I don’t know enough about your and Richard’s relationship to have an
opinion.”
“That’s right, you don’t,” Octavia snapped. She took another sip to cover the fact that her eyes had
filled with unwanted tears. After a few blinks, though, she couldn’t fight the panic anymore and a sob
escaped her.
Linda reached across the table to clasp her hand. “It’s going to be okay.”
But the dam had burst, sweeping away Octavia’s pride and revealing her low-lying vulnerabilities. The
seed of doubt in her mind when she’d walked down the aisle all those years ago had grown over the years,
but she’d ignored it...and now she had a solid mass weighing down her heart. “Don’t you see, Linda? It’s
not
going to be okay. I did everything wrong. I chose a lavish life with Richard over having a family or a
career of my own. If we’re broke, I’ll have nothing to show for it. And I’m going to be the laughingstock
of all my friends.”
Linda’s silence rang in the air like a cry of victory. She had children, and the dignity of being a widow,
while Octavia was simply discarded alongside the road like a sack of garbage.
Her sister got up and came back with a box of tissue. “So what now?”
Octavia blew her nose noisily. “Will you take me home? I need to find Richard.”
Linda walked to the window. Octavia knew Linda was going to tell her she had too much on her own
plate to be pulled into Octavia’s problems, that she had a thousand errands today to run herself. And after
being so insensitive to Linda’s situation, she deserved to be snubbed. She was a terrible sister, and she
wouldn’t blame Linda if she told her to rent a car or call a cab, neither of which she could afford.
Linda heaved a sigh and turned back. “Well, you can’t stay in this junked up place. Can you be ready in
thirty minutes?”
“DID WE HAVE to bring the dog?”
Linda turned an amused smile toward Octavia in the passenger seat. Max stood on the back floorboard
with his paws on the console and his head jutted between the two front seats, tongue lolling. “Max isn’t
bothering anyone.”
At the sound of his name, he woofed.
“Speak for yourself. He’s getting slobber all over the sleeve of my blouse.”
“That would be the sleeve of
my
blouse,” Linda corrected. She took perverse satisfaction in the fact that
Octavia had to borrow some of her discount clothes to wear.
“And on that subject, let me just say that capri pants are the single worst fashion fraud ever perpetrated
on American women,” Octavia chirped.
“You look fine,” Linda said with a laugh. “No one can see the labels on the inside.”
“A discerning person doesn’t have to see labels.”
“You know the saying ‘beggars can’t be choosers’?”
Octavia sniffed. “I’m calling my accountant.”
Linda shook her head — Octavia was a master at deflecting conversation when it suited her.
It was another beautiful spring morning in the Bluegrass, with plenty of turquoise sky and white clouds.
Trees were fuzzy with new leaves and bulb flowers nodded along Versailles Road. There were faster routes
to Louisville, but none so pretty, with its stacked limestone walls bordering the road and white board fences
that delineated the sprawling horse farms the area was famous for.
Unbidden tears filled her eyes. Sullivan would never again see the beauty of a perfect spring day. Why
hadn’t they gone on more picnics? Taken the kids hiking?
Because they’d assumed they had tomorrow.
Octavia’s shrill voice broke into her thoughts. “So help me, Frank, if you know where Richard is and
you’re not telling me, I’ll put your balls in a slingshot....There
has
to be some money somewhere....Then
what am I supposed to live on?...Are you insane? I’m
not
going to sell my jewelry....Fax a report of where
we stand financially to the house, I’m on my way there....Yeah, well you have a nice fucking day, too,
Frank.” Octavia stabbed the End button. “When is someone going to come up with an app that makes it
sound like you hung up on the other person?”
Linda cringed. “I’m not sure you should be alienating your accountant right now.”
Octavia whipped out a mirror and pressed a finger to the crease between her eyebrows. She looked
pained. “For all I know, he could be taking advantage of Richard’s absence...maybe he took our money and
is lying about everything.”
Linda didn’t offer her opinion. Guilt gnawed at her for mourning the bounced ten thousand dollar
check Octavia had given her. Yes, she was eager to deposit Octavia back into her own world (and out of
theirs), but another reason she’d offered to drive her sister home was to escape...escape the bill collectors
calling and the overdue notices stuffed in her mailbox. Today was Friday...she’d give herself until Monday
before she hit the panic button.
For now, God help her, it made her feel a tad better to know that even wealthy people could have
financial problems.
She turned to look at Octavia, but Octavia was staring out the window. In the distance, a sleek
thoroughbred galloped through a lush field with her foal running along beside her, all legs and head. Her
sister always had a soft spot for horses, had taken riding lessons when she was young, and begged their
father to buy her a pony to train.
Nelson Guy’s parenting style could best be described as “uneven.” Sometimes he would leave the girls