Cardiac Arrest, page 4
Dorothy didn’t have to turn in her chair to know that Gladys Rumway had arrived in the dining room, with a large party of chattering friends in tow.
“There goes the neighborhood,” Ernie muttered.
“I’ll do my best, Mrs. Rumway. Perhaps we can put two tables together.” Walter, who’d been the long-suffering head waiter in the Hibiscus Pointe Canyons dining room since it opened in 1982, clapped his hands for a busboy.
“Doooo-rothy!”
She felt a rush of rayon-flapping wind as Gladys swooped toward their table in a dizzying black-patterned caftan, seemingly oblivious to the startled looks from the other diners.
“The girls and I weren’t going to eat in the dining room tonight—can you believe the news about poor Dr. A?—but we just had to run over as soon as we heard about your terrible ordeal.”
“I’m fine, really, Gladys,” Dorothy told her.
“How can you be fine?” Gladys waved her friends on and dropped down into the extra chair at their table. “Imagine finding your own doctor”—she made a feeble attempt to lower her voice—”stone-cold dead on his office floor, with that tramp standing over him?”
Ernie quirked a salt-and-pepper brow at Dorothy. “Yes, imagine that.”
“And get this. I heard that Summer girl was arrested for murder,” Gladys announced with glee.
Where had she gotten that ridiculous information? Dorothy took a fortifying sip of her iced tea. “Those were hardly the circumstances, Gladys,” she murmured. “And Margaret’s granddaughter has not been arrested.”
She was quite sure of that, because she was looking at Summer right now. The dining room offered a clear view of the pool area through the ceiling-to-floor windows. Perhaps she should mention that to her, in case she got any ideas about skinny-dipping.
Gladys crossed her arms across her ample chest, clearly unconvinced. Then she glanced at Ernie and leaned closer to Dorothy. “Oh, I get it,” she said, in a loud whisper. “You don’t want to say anything in front of him, right?” She jerked her thumb toward Ernie under the tablecloth.
Dorothy felt her blood pressure rise. “That’s not it at all.” She suspected that some of the ladies in the Hibiscus Gardens section speculated about her and Ernie’s relationship, but it was all hogwash. “Now, if you’ll excuse us—”
“Okay, okay.” Gladys mercifully rose from the table. “We’ll talk later. I’ll stop by the pool tomorrow morning on my way to chair yoga.”
“Nice seeing you, as always, Gladys,” Ernie said, clearly amused.
“Likewise, Ernest,” Gladys said, over her shoulder. “By the way, how is poor Grace?”
His soft brown eyes uncrinkled. “She’s doing about the same,” he said, evenly. “Thanks for asking.”
Yes, thank you ever so much, Dorothy wanted to add. Ernie’s wife suffered from Alzheimer’s. A caretaker came by for a few hours each day to spell Ernie, so he could have a bit of a break.
Really, she was tempted to strangle Gladys Rumway with those five ropes of ugly jade beads wound round her saggy neck. The woman never quit.
Chapter Five
“Hey, need a ride?”
Summer turned, shading her eyes against the brutal afternoon glare.
A guy in a crisp white shirt, with blond highlights and an extreme tan, leaned casually across the passenger seat of a white Mercedes convertible. Conceited jerk. Even if he did look like a GQ cover model.
She was about to shake her head when she spotted the equally well-dressed little girl in the backseat, wearing an enormous sunhat and clutching a purple patent leather purse.
The kid, who looked about five—Summer was terrible at guessing ages—definitely had style. She probably took after her dad.
Summer glanced back at the long, zigzag line of seniors boarding the shuttle bus to the Publix Shopping Center. She could go with them, or...
“Thanks,” she said, hopping into the Mercedes. “I’d really appreciate it.”
“Where are you headed? We’re on our way to Alice’s Ice Cream, if you want to join us.”
Not a bad line. And she could go for a snack. Besides, the guy had a cute kid. How bad could he be? “Sounds good,” Summer said. “I was on my way to Publix. My car’s in the shop.” Actually, the Mini was still dead as roadkill in the Hibiscus Towers parking lot, but there was no point in bringing that up.
“So I take it you’re not a regular of the five-star Hibiscus Pointe Transport System.” The guy flashed a smile as he slowed for a succession of speed bumps. The gated community’s perimeter road boasted a fifteen-mile-per-hour speed limit, a regular Autobahn for golf carts. “Do you work in the complex?”
Summer sighed. “No, I live here. Sort of.”
“Huh, and I wouldn’t have put you a day over fifty-four.”
A real comedian, this guy.
“We live here, too,” he said. “Over in Hibiscus Villas.”
“Wait a second. You don’t need to be fifty-five?” Well, that wasn’t fair. Now she could tell the Residents Board where to jump.
“Not in the Villas,” the guy said. “They’re all private homes. We have our own residents association, but we do get to use the main pool, the tennis courts and the golf course. A pretty sweet deal for us, really. No upkeep. I’m Dash Hamel, by the way, and this is–”
“I am Juliette-Margot.” The little girl had either a slight lisp or some kind of accent.
Summer twisted in her seat. She wasn’t a huge fan of kids, but this one really was cute. “Nice to meet you, Juliette-Margot. My name’s Summer. I like your purse.”
“Merci. That means ‘thank you’ in French.”
“Got it.” Summer glanced sideways at Dash. “And what does your name mean?”
He shrugged behind the wheel. “What can I say? My mom’s a mystery writer.” At Summer’s blank look, he added, “As in, Dashiell Hammett? You know, he wrote The Maltese Falcon? She thought it would be adorable to name me after her own favorite author.”
“Oh.” Summer still didn’t get it, but then, she wasn’t a big reader.
Dash pulled into a small parking lot in the shadow of a huge, splashy sign that read Alice’s Ice Cream—A 34-Flavor Wonderland!
“Welcome to ice cream heaven,” he announced, running around to open the passenger doors.
“Thanks,” Summer said, impressed. She couldn’t quite place the brand of his aftershave, but it was one of the few that didn’t make her gag.
Alice sold her ice cream out of a silver Airstream trailer, which seemed a little risky. It had to be scorching in there. Wouldn’t everything melt?
Summer stood next to Juliette-Margot as they checked out the flavor board, feeling self-conscious about her scuffed, drugstore flip-flops. The kid was wearing pink, open-toed Mary Janes.
“Juliette-Margot prefers White Rabbit Chocolate, s’il vous plait.”
“Okay,” Dash said. “How about you, Summer? I’m buying.”
She was beginning to like this guy more and more. “Um, maybe the Red Queen Licorice. S’il vous plait.”
Juliette-Margot smiled under her sun hat.
“Excellent choices,” Dash said. “I’m going with the Mad Hatter Party Batter. Why don’t you ladies head over to the picnic bench and I’ll bring the cones and napkins?”
They would be lucky to get a seat. The place was packed with seniors, beachgoers, tourists and screaming little kids running around the scratchy grass.
“You’re a very good swimmer,” Juliette-Margot told Summer, when they finally sat down.
“Thanks,” she said. “How’d you know that?”
“We saw you at the pool last night. Juliette-Margot can only go there after the sun goes down or she’ll burn.”
“Smart girl.” Did the kid always refer to herself by name like that? “So, where’s your mom?” she added, casually.
“She lives in Paris, but Juliette-Margot has never met her,” the little girl answered. “Juliette-Margot has two papas.”
Summer righted herself on the bench. “Oh, that’s nice.” She glanced back at Dash, who was walking toward them with three enormous, rapidly melting cones, holding them carefully away from his white shirt.
Major bummer. She definitely hadn’t seen that coming.
“Where does your mother live?” Juliette-Margot asked.
“On another planet,” Summer answered. It was sort of the truth.
Juliette-Margot looked impressed. “Have you ever met her?”
“Oh, sure.” Sometimes she wished she’d never known Harmony Smythe-Sloan, but there was no point in bursting a little kid’s bubble.
She was so busy concentrating on the sides of her cone that she almost didn’t see the gleaming black car pull into the parking lot.
Major Bummer Number Two. Hopefully, Detective Donovan was just looking for ice cream.
She squinted at the driver’s side window, ignoring the cold chunk of licorice that dropped onto her thigh.
He had to be hungry, because he walked straight to the Airstream order window. The earlier crowd had dwindled, but another wave of ice cream fans was heading in on the Milano Trolley.
Good. With luck, he wouldn’t even notice her.
But as he waited, buff arms crossed, for the frazzled high school girl in the tie-dyed Alice’s T-shirt to make correct change, Detective Donovan turned, very casually, in her direction.
Jeez. No guys, not even cops, were ever subtle. Unfortunately, he wasn’t here to ask her out. He obviously had her under surveillance.
Now she was trapped. And that rat Dash had chosen this very second to step away, deep in conversation with a design client on his cell.
Might as well get this over with. She looked at Juliette-Margot, whose lavender-checked sundress was still spotless. Even her daisy-decaled nails were chocolate-free as she delicately swirled her way through her cone.
“You know what? You need some rainbow sprinkles. I’ll go get you some.” Summer nearly knocked over the picnic bench as she jumped up.
The detective was already headed toward the condiments bar with his food, pretending not to see her.
“Hey, hi.” Summer smoothed her short, denim skirt as she stepped in beside him. “What a coincidence, both of us being here, huh?”
He gave a slight nod, focused on applying a perfect line of Dijon mustard to his hot dog bun. “Ms. Sloan—er, Smythe.”
“You’re following me, aren’t you?”
He looked back at her with an innocent expression. “No. I’m grabbing lunch.”
“Right.” Summer glanced behind her and took a deep breath. “Look, I need you to be straight with me, okay? Am I a suspect in the Dr. A murder thing, or what?”
The mustard container let out a sudden, gassy sound. Detective Donovan’s neck reddened as he quickly returned the plastic bottle to the counter. “No one is talking about murder or suspects right now,” he said. “We don’t have the toxicology reports back yet.”
Summer bit her lip. Why didn’t she believe him? Was he just saying that so she wouldn’t suspect she was a suspect? Cops did that sometimes, on TV. She could tell from his tone that there was no way she’d get him to drop the tough-guy act. “So how long does that take?”
“Depends.”
“Well, if I did end up being a suspect or something, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”
“Again, that depends.” He smiled pleasantly, then extracted a relish packet from the wicker serving basket and shook it by one corner. “But I have to say, Ms. Smythe-Sloan, you do have a very interesting background.”
So he had been checking up on her. “What do you mean?”
The detective shrugged. “There isn’t by chance anything you’d like to tell me, is there? About what happened in New Jersey, maybe?”
Summer’s jaw almost dropped to her flip-flops. How had he found out about that one minor incident? She’d never been charged and it was none of his business. It was nobody’s business, in fact, and she’d moved all the way here to Milano for a fresh start. “I don’t think so,” she said, keeping her voice steady.
“Okay, then.” He threw her a funny little smile, which might have been sort of cute, under totally different circumstances.
“There’s nothing else you need to ask me about Dr. A, right?” Summer asked. “Because I’ve already told you everything that happened.”
“We’ll talk later, I’m sure, after that lab work I mentioned is back. So why don’t you rejoin your friends over there and I’ll enjoy my lunch?”
She nodded, her face flaming as she retreated toward the picnic table, with Detective Donovan’s gaze boring into her back. She’d just have to tell Juliette-Margot they were out of rainbow sprinkles.
“Oh, and Ms. Smythe-Sloan?”
Reluctantly, Summer turned.
“You have some licorice on the back of your skirt.” He smiled again and toasted her with his jumbo soda cup. “And remember, stick around town. I’d hate not to be able to find you when it’s time for our little conversation. I’m really looking forward to it.”
Chapter Six
“I promise you, Ernie, I’m not going to get myself in any kind of trouble. I’m just making a brief condolence call.”
Ernie peered out the car window at the neat, pink stucco house with the Spanish-style entrance. “I don’t like this, Dorothy,” he said. “What if Carolyn, or whatever her name is, was the one who bumped off that Dr. A guy? She might be dangerous.”
Dorothy sighed. It might not have been wise to reveal her plan for the afternoon. But she’d needed a ride, and her friend never seemed to mind chauffeuring her around town. Besides, she enjoyed his company—and it was unlikely she could ever get into serious trouble with Ernie Conlon around.
“Marilyn hardly seems dangerous,” Dorothy told him. “I can’t imagine her harming Dr. A after all those years they worked together. They were a good team.”
“Maybe that was the problem,” Ernie pointed out. “She could have been in love with him, you know, and he may not even have realized it. Then he gets engaged, she gets her heart broken, and bam! He’s a dead man.”
“Well, Summer was quite sure they were an item,” Dorothy said. “If that’s true, he would have known exactly how Marilyn felt.”
Ernie shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe not.”
“Why don’t you drop me off right here by the mailbox?” Dorothy said. “There’s no need to pull into the driveway. You could go down and get a root beer float at Mo’s Diner, perhaps, so you won’t get bored waiting for me.”
“Waiting? Are you kidding? I’m going in there with you.”
Dorothy hesitated. If Ernie accompanied her, Marilyn might not speak as freely. On the other hand, from the determined look on her friend’s face, it didn’t look as though she had a choice.
Ernie pulled the Camry into the horseshoe driveway and parked a few feet past Marilyn’s front door. Dorothy noted that a car was parked in the open garage. Someone was home, thank goodness.
Ernie had to ring the bell several times before the door finally opened.
Dorothy hardly recognized the woman behind it. The normally elegant Marilyn looked as if she’d just rolled out of bed, and she seemed to have aged a decade or two. Huge, dark shadows underlined her puffy, red eyes, and her unwashed hair stood out every which way. One side of her face bore what looked like the imprint of a horsehair sofa cushion.
Stop that, Dorothy scolded herself. The poor woman’s lack of grooming was completely understandable, under the circumstances.
Dr. A’s alleged paramour didn’t seem startled to see one of his patients, accompanied by a man she didn’t know, standing on her front patio. “Mrs. Westin. What a pleasant surprise.”
“Please, call me Dorothy.” She quickly introduced Ernie, who hovered behind her in his checkered golf slacks and Hibiscus Pointe polo shirt, clearly on high alert. He gave Marilyn a polite nod.
“Won’t you come in?” Marilyn opened the door wider. An identical pair of tiny white dogs appeared out of nowhere, yapping and jumping as they circled Dorothy’s and Ernie’s feet. They seemed considerably more enthusiastic than Marilyn about visitors.
“Don’t mind if we do, thanks.” Dorothy stepped neatly past the whirling blurs of fur and teeth. Ernie wasn’t as lucky. Those slacks would definitely need dry-cleaning. “This is for you,” she added, holding out a Publix tuna noodle casserole.
“Why, thank you,” Marilyn said. “I’ll take this to the kitchen and corral my babies. You two make yourselves comfortable in the living room and I’ll bring out some cool drinks.”
So far, so good, Dorothy thought. At least Dr. A’s personal assistant hadn’t thrown them out.
She and Ernie settled themselves on the white couch in the tastefully decorated living room. Marilyn had embraced what local designers referred to as the Milano Style—a calculated mix of formal, wicker, and Asian-inspired furniture, gold trim accents, ocean art, seashell lamps, brightly colored throws and pillows, and airy window treatments. There was no sign of horsehair.
A large palm fan turned overhead, its gentle whirring drowned out by the central air conditioner.
Marilyn set a Chinese tray with a pitcher of lemonade, three tall glasses, and a plate of cheese and crackers on the coffee table, then poured them all drinks. “Insta-Made.” She sounded apologetic.
“It’s delicious,” Dorothy assured her.
“Really hits the spot.” Ernie agreed. Dorothy noticed that he hadn’t touched his glass.
“So, did you come all this way just to see me?” Marilyn perched on a chair beside a graceful, potted Norfolk pine. “Thank you again for the casserole. That was very thoughtful of you.”
