Dying Wishes (19 page)

The
chicken that had seemed so tasty a minute ago now formed a cold lump in my
stomach as I gaped at Ginny.

“But
those were just allegations, the sort of rumors busybodies inevitably concoct
about a handsome young man in their midst. I told you what Margo said, what a
fine, gentlemanly person she thought he was,” I all but wailed.

“Keep
your voice down,” Ginny snapped. “I don’t think Margo Farnsworth is a reliable
judge of what is and is not acceptable behavior, from her reputation around
town before she landed that police lieutenant. I had to make a managerial
decision, and I decided Garcia needed a formal warning on his record, so I gave
him one. Getting all riled up and quitting was his idea, and good riddance.”

Judgment, yes.
Ginny was
all about making judgments these days, regardless of whether they were
supported by evidence. I imagined poor Tommy, hauled into the boss’s office on
a Wednesday afternoon and accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with
retirement-age women. Having some experience with a short-fused Latino myself,
I wasn’t surprised that he had quit. Then I remembered Ginny’s snide remark
about Margo, and heat flooded my face.

“Margo
Harkness
is my partner and dear friend,” I said,
struggling to keep my voice low. Even so, I sensed growing interest in our
conversation from the staff members seated nearby. “She is smart and honest and
insightful, not to mention loyal to a fault, and I would trust her with my
life. I know for a fact that her husband feels extremely lucky to have her in
his life, as well he should. We all do. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some
phone calls to return.”

As
I snatched up my purse and stalked to the door, I felt dozens of curious eyes
following me, but I was too outraged on my friend’s behalf to care. I couldn’t
quit Vista View without first consulting my partners, but it certainly crossed
my mind. Sandy was absent from the hostess station, which was just as well.

I
had no idea what had prompted the change in Ginny Preston, but it was becoming
beyond endurance. The Ginny I had known and agreed to work with had been
efficient and capable but also warmhearted and tolerant. Over the past few
weeks she had become a different person, cold and judgmental. Once again,
Armando’s assessment of the situation had been spot on.

When
I reached the sales desk, I pocketed my phone message slips without looking at
them and kept right on going out the front door. I had had my fill of Vista
View for the week. Instead of driving directly to Mack Realty, I parked on
Broad Street and changed into the Adidas shoes I kept in the car. I needed to
walk off some steam, and a brisk circuit of the green usually did the trick.

As
usual, I started at the Nathaniel Foote monument and headed toward the Anderson
Farm and the
Henstocks
’ childhood home. As it always
did, the sight of the beautifully restored structure soothed me, and my pace
slowed as I admired the well-tended beds of mums, sedum and other late fall
blooms. My eyes wandered to the
MacRaes
’ former
residence diagonally across the street, and I remembered that I had yet to
complete the preliminary paperwork the lawyer had left with me. It would be a
good project for the weekend, I told myself. Armando could do some thinking
about similar documents for himself. I would make a follow-up appointment with
MacRae
for next week and get everything taken care of
before my fiftieth birthday. At least this Vista View experience wouldn’t be a
total waste. Perhaps I should just stop in now and book the appointment with
Shirley.

I
turned into
MacRae’s
driveway where the blue Audi was
parked. To my surprise, a chocolate brown Labrador retriever, the spitting
image of Rhett Butler, was tied to the driver’s side door handle.

“Hello
there,” I said, offering my hand for a sniff. I hadn’t been aware that the
MacRaes
had a dog. I nearly jumped out of my skin as the
Lab went crazy, yipping and whining and all but throwing himself into my arms
as he strained against the rope tethering him to the car.

Frowning,
I soothed the excited animal by talking quietly to him. Something about this
dog was very familiar. “Rhett, sit,” I commanded experimentally, and his furry
backside hit the ground. I reached for the tags on his collar to confirm what I
already suspected. This dog didn’t just look like Rhett. He
was
Rhett.

I
looked around in confusion for Margo’s car but didn’t see it. As I struggled to
come up with some logical explanation for this odd turn of events,
MacRae
himself came out the front door, his cell phone at
his ear. His eyes lit up when he saw me.

“I
don’t think that will be necessary, Ms.
Harkness
,” he
said into it. “Your partner, Ms. Lawrence, seems to be here. Perhaps she can
tell us both what’s going on.” He handed the phone to me and backed off a few
steps, watching Rhett uneasily.

“Margo?
Why is Rhett Butler tied to the door of Gerald
MacRae’s
car at his office on Broad Street?”

“Oh,
thank God, it really is him. We’ve been
goin
’ crazy
here. Emma went out back about an hour ago, and Rhett’s pen was empty, the gate
wide open,” she almost sobbed. “I thought I must not have closed it securely,
and one of those damned squirrels taunted him …”

Her
voice caught in a hiccup, and Emma came on the line. “Momma, where are you? Do
you need any help? I’ve been calling you and calling you, but you weren’t at
Vista View, and your cell phone wasn’t on.” I didn’t miss the censorial tone of
her voice. My history as a cell phone user was unfortunate and lengthy.

Guiltily,
I remembered the unread phone messages in my purse. I gave her a quick rundown
of how I’d found Rhett. “All I need is a pair of scissors or a knife to cut
this rope, and Rhett and I will be along directly,” I said, aware that
MacRae
was listening. I had no doubt that Rhett would be
happy to accompany me to my car. More likely, he would drag me to it.

MacRae
took the
hint and hurried back inside. He reappeared with sturdy shears and handed them
to me. “Sorry,” he said, keeping his distance, “but dogs make me nervous. I was
bitten as a kid and never really got over it.”

That
didn’t make him a good candidate for
dognapper
, I
concluded. “How did Rhett get here, and why is he tied to your car?” I asked
bluntly as I sawed at the rope with the shears. It was old, from the look of
it, but thick. Rhett helped by flopping onto my feet with a sigh.

“I
have no idea. All I know is that I was inside preparing a will with Shirley
when we both heard a dog whining outside the window. I called one of my young
associates downstairs to investigate, and he found this unhappy animal tied to
my door handle. Fortunately, he had tags on his collar. I was just speaking to
Ms.
Harkness
on the telephone when you turned up.” He
shook his head, mystified. “I haven’t got a clue,” he finished, “do you?”

I
sawed through the last of the rope and returned the shears to
MacRae
. I thought about our Vista View inquiry and Margo’s
session with Tommy Garcia during which he had told her about his plans for the
future. I remembered Sandy’s sullen expression at lunchtime and my conversation
with Ginny about Tommy’s sudden departure. Then I considered the vindictive,
but amateurish, nature of the door-painting incident at Mack Realty and now
this, stealing poor Rhett from his pen but leaving him unharmed and in plain
sight of any handy rescuer.

“As
a matter of fact, I do,” I said shortly and allowed Rhett to tug me out of the
driveway and back the way I had come.

~

At
the end of a long afternoon, my partners and I sat on the back stoop of the Law
Barn, where Margo kept Rhett firmly by her side. Their reunion had been
something to see, and they hadn’t been apart for a moment since. Emma lunged
out the front door at five-thirty like a racehorse leaving the gate. We locked
it behind her and silenced the phones before we assembled out back, paper cups
filled with a decent Chardonnay in hand.

It
was chilly enough to require jackets but still pleasant. In another couple of
weeks it would be pitch dark at this hour, thanks to the fall time change that
seemed to come earlier with every passing year. I shivered and drank deeply of
my wine. Where was a good hot flash when you could really use one?

“It
was just so
mean
,” Margo said,
clearly bewildered. “I get that in some convoluted way Sandy thought I was
responsible for Tommy
losin
’ his job by
tellin
’ imaginary tales of lust to his boss, but how could
she take it out on my Rhett?” Her eyes flashed at the thought. “Can you imagine
how he must have felt, tied to a car door in some strange place?”

“It
wasn’t all that strange,”
Strutter
attempted to
soothe her. “Rhett has walked around those streets with us for years. I think
he’s on a first-name basis with some of the ducks on the Spring Street pond.”
Her tone was light, but the softness in her eyes let Margo know she understood
how she felt.

I
added my two cents. “He can’t have been there long. Sandy was in the dining
room at twelve-thirty, and I found him at
MacRae’s
office around two. Good thing I got mad and left Vista View early.” I told them
about Ginny
dissing
me but edited out her snide
remark about Margo’s past.

“What
if you hadn’t? What if
MacRae
hadn’t heard Rhett out
there
cryin
’? What if he came out in a hurry and
drove off without even
knowin
’ poor Rhett was …”

She
was working herself into a real state. I grabbed her chin and made her look at
me. “Sandy tied him to the driver’s side door handle so that couldn’t happen,”
I said firmly. “She also knew that people go in and out of
MacRae’s
office all the time, so Rhett would be found quickly, and he was wearing tags.
She was sending you a message: Mess with my boyfriend, and I’ll mess with you.
She didn’t intend to hurt Rhett; she just wanted you to know that she could if
sufficiently provoked.”

“It
actually sounds like something Margo might have done as a kid, except it
wouldn’t involve some poor beast,”
Strutter
observed,
startling Margo and me. “So what do you think, should we find her car and let
the air out of her tires? Maybe we should sneak into the dining room at Vista
View and glue the menus together at the hostess station. I know! We could fill
all the sugar dispensers with salt. That’ll fix her.” She grinned broadly.

The
wild look dimmed in Margo’s eyes, and I released her chin. “It is all pretty
high school,” she agreed. The corners of her mouth were beginning to turn up, I
noted with relief. “So are we just going to let the little piss-pot get away
with it? Who knows what she might have planned for us next?”

“No,
indeed,” I assured her. “That young woman needs to learn that actions have
consequences, and I can’t think of a more fitting consequence for an inveterate
sneak than being called out in public. We have a perfect opportunity coming up
to do it, too.”

I
had Margo’s attention now. “And what would that be?” she asked with some of her
old zip.

“You
and I will be dropping by the Vista View Halloween social tomorrow night. I
told Bert Rosenthal I would stop by for a few minutes, and I’m sure Sandy will
be expected to be there to help out. Since everyone will be wearing masks,
she’ll never even know we’re there until we’ve got her cornered. I think it’s
time all this nonsense about Tommy gets brought out into the open. Nothing
kills a rumor faster than exposure to the light, so to speak.”

Strutter
pouted. “I miss all the fun these days.”

“That’s
what you get for having an adorable baby girl and a son who’s playing in the
regional finals in Springfield tomorrow,” I retorted. “Don’t worry, we’ll fill
you in.”

“What
do you suggest we do with John and Armando while we’re out
fixin
’
this little gal?” Margo wanted to know. “I don’t know about your husband, but
mine gets kind of curious when I leave him home alone on a Saturday
evenin
’.”

I
hadn’t thought about that, but I did now. “How about I invite the two of you
over for pizza and a movie? You and I volunteer to go pick up a couple of DVDs
and the pizza. We’ll be gone less than an hour, and you know the minute we leave
they’ll get involved in some boring game on TV. They won’t even miss us.”

Strutter
looked at us appraisingly. “You two are getting a little too good at lying to
your husbands,” she observed.

“We’re not
lyin
’ in the
strictest sense of the words.
We’re just
choosin
’ to leave a few things out of the conversation,”
Margo protested.
 
“We do what we need to
do without
gettin
’ ‘
em
all
riled up. You know they’ll be happier not
knowin
’.”