The Five Strangers, page 7
“He grew up without any relatives except for his mom, and she passed away right after he graduated from college. He worked for a while at an accounting firm up in Milwaukee until he could take the CPA exam, but once he passed that he decided there was no reason he needed to stay in Milwaukee, with his mother gone. The climate was too cold for him.”
“And I wanted a less urban lifestyle, if you know what I mean,” he interjected.
“Right,” Jelly said briskly, proceeding as if she owned the story and wasn’t going to tolerate interruptions. “As long as he was all on his own, he decided to move to Florida and look for a nice, small beach town to live in, and here he is.”
Having her spill out the story of his life while he was standing right there might have irritated some men, but not Caden. In fact, as Jelly gave me all the personal details, he stood there gazing at her with a fatuous smile on his face.
Jelly conquers again.
I hoped she wasn’t going to toy with the poor kid. He seemed like a nice boy.
“Well, I certainly wish you all the best,” I told Caden. “You’re going to find Rocky to be a really nice officemate. She’s not just a real estate agent, you know; she’s our mayor. So you’re moving with the right crowd already.”
His finely shaped eyebrows rose. “No, I didn’t know that. She didn’t mention it.”
Jelly easily got his attention again, saying, “Taylor’s here to take me across the street for lunch. We’ve got a really great diner here in town. Want to join us?”
He sagged visibly. “I wish I could. Truly. But I’ve got an appointment with a new client, and I don’t want to be late. Rain check?”
“Sure,” Jelly said, but I could see she was almost as disappointed as he was. Almost.
“You’ve got a new client already,” I remarked. “Congratulations. You’re off to a good start.”
Something about this engaging young man had revived my spirits. Promising youth will do that for an old lady like me. The gloom from the antique shop had magically lifted and floated away as we talked, and I found I was disappointed he wasn’t tagging along for lunch, too. I liked him. And if I felt like I was in the way, I could have always made the excuse that I had to get back to the shelter and get some work done – which I did – leaving him to gaze across the table at Jelly’s heart-shaped face and become hopelessly lost.
At lunch, I intended to speak sharply to Jelly. Hearts are not playthings. She needed to be reminded.
“Is Florence around?” I asked.
“She’s in the back room,” Jelly said. She called out, and Florence appeared at the doorway’s portieres.
“Are the three of you off to lunch?” she asked, coming up to us.
“Unfortunately, Caden’s can’t come, but Taylor and I are on our way, as soon as you’re ready to take over up front.”
Florence seemed as disappointed as the rest of us that Caden wasn’t joining us. Looking at her, I figured here was another heart that would break if things didn’t work out between the attractive youngsters. A confirmed spinster, Florence seemed to have fallen deeper under the spell of romance as the passing years had taken it farther away from her.
“I’m ready,” Florence said. “You young people go ahead. It’s been a real pleasure meeting you, Caden, and I’m so pleased you’ve decided to move to our little town. I hope we’re going to be seeing a lot of you around here.”
Wow. With three ladies falling all over him like this, Caden had to be going off to his meeting with a spring in his step, a song in his heart and a smile on his lips. And a pretty lady on his mind, and I’m not talking about myself or Florence.
What a contrast between the atmosphere in Girlfriend’s and the one in Beloved of Old. It had been like going from a crypt to a bridal shower.
Jelly and I ran across Locust Street like a couple of little girls going to the playground.
Chapter 9 – The Strange Inheritance
“I met the antique lady today,” I told Michael that evening as we settled down together after dinner.
“And?”
“Everybody’s right. And I don’t think any of them have even seen her shop yet. It’s actually more horrible than she is.”
“I can’t wait to see it.”
“Don’t look behind the front door. There’s a painting there that’ll give you nightmares for a week. She’s got it propped against the wall, though she’ll probably have it hung someplace where you can’t miss it by the time she opens. She’s already got the shop crammed so full of Hammer Films décor there won’t be much room left for the customers by the time she opens, which isn’t going to be until a week from Friday.”
“I know. We’re invited. At least, I am, and you’re going as my plus-one. Champagne and finger food on sterling silver trays, no doubt.”
“I’m not sure I’ll feel like eating in there,” I said, reaching down for my elderly Yorkie, Magoo. He’s six ounces shy of five pounds, and not young enough or big enough to jump up into my lap by himself. He doesn’t even try anymore; he’s got me trained to automatically reach down for him as soon as he comes near. I had adopted him from my own shelter and hadn’t had him very long at the time, but already he was my baby. And of course, the feeling was mutual; I was his mama.
After all, unless she was being weird again, our cat Bastet belonged to Michael. Bastet had walked in two seconds after Magoo, levitated soundlessly into Michael’s lap, studied his face inquiringly, then decided to reach up and give him a nose-bump, maybe just to make me jealous. Then she settled down, having never taken the slightest interest in either myself or Magoo.
I didn’t take offense. I was used to Her Majesty’s ways. I went on talking to Michael.
“Jelly had already painted a very vivid word picture of Sheila, and awful as it was, she’d been too kind. When I came into her shop, Sheila was calling Gardner Cagney an idiot. Gardner, of all people.”
“I can’t imagine anybody talking to Gardner like that. He’s such a likeable, easy-going guy.”
“Too easy-going for Sheila. By the way, she wants me to put in a good word for her with Jasper.”
His eyebrows shot up almost to his silvery hairline. “Are you going to do that?”
“I’m leaving that situation alone, if I possibly can. But if you nail me down about it, I think he’s right about her. She’s creepy and coldblooded and probably sociopathic.”
He cackled. “I haven’t met her yet, but I’ve been told the same thing. She must give off a strange vibe.”
“Not strange. Creepy. Evil, even. It isn’t often I go all fortuneteller on you, but I’m going to now. That lady isn’t who she wants us to think she is. I know it.”
“Oh? How?”
“The spirits have revealed it to me. You know, the usual way. By the way, how do you rate an invitation to the grand gala?”
“All the members of the City Council got one. I’m surprised you didn’t get one, having a business on the same block as hers.”
I shrugged. “Maybe she already sees the other shopkeepers as rivals.”
I had to back off then, because our elderly housekeeper, Myrtle, was coming over from the kitchen.
We acquired Myrtle with the house. She’d been housekeeper to the Cadbury family for most of her life, and they felt a noble obligation to see her through the golden years, letting her live on in the house that for so long had been her home. We liked her, in spite of her sniffy-old-lady ways, and when it came to light housekeeping and just having a presence in the house all day, she was still helpful. But really, Myrtle was more like a star boarder than a housekeeper.
Myrtle said something about going upstairs, if we didn’t want anything else tonight, just like the perfect servant from the Gilded Age, but she wasn’t fooling me. Usually after dinner she wants to spend the rest of the evening in her own suite of rooms watching TV or reading, but tonight she wanted to come and join the conversation because she’d overheard us talking about Sheila Colson.
Giving me a knowing look, Michael said, “Why don’t you have a seat and visit with us a while first, Myrtle? I haven’t talked to you all day.”
I hadn’t either, but Myrtle was ready to launch, and she started right in before she was even settled into her favorite chair.
“I heard you talking about the antique lady. That shop of hers is going to last exactly one year,” she said.
“Really?” Michael said, mildly surprised.
“Why’s that?” I asked her.
“Because that’s how long the lease runs,” she told us. “One year, with an option to extend from year to year with thirty days’ prior written notice.” She rattled it off as if she had a copy of the lease in front of her. Unnecessarily, she added, “Rocky was the real estate agent. She told Florence, and Florence told me.” (Florence happened to be Myrtle’s older sister.) “Danny usually sticks them with a two- or three-year lease right up front, but he said he was going to have mercy on Sheila because she didn’t have a chance, but if he didn’t rent to her somebody else would, she’s that determined.”
Danny O’Day was our longtime landlord; he owned most of the property facing onto Locust Street.
“Why doesn’t Danny think she’s going to make it?” Michael asked.
“I can tell you that,” I said. “Because she’s selling Miami mega-mansion décor in a laid-back seaside community where we’d rather have rustic tables with fish painted all over them than genuine gold-plated Louis XIV, that’s why.”
“I don’t know,” Michael said, considering. “There are an awful lot of mansions being built along A1A just north of here, overlooking the ocean. I don’t think those people will be looking to furnish their castles with rustic anything.”
Myrtle leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Russian mob, that’s what I heard. It’s all money-laundering. They build a mansion and spend a week there every two or three years, throw a big party, run around naked on the beach, then it’s off again to someplace else on their private jets. They usually have five or six mansions, all around the world.”
Michael and I took this in without comment. It’s a strange old world, after all, and the Russian mob has got to launder its money somewhere.
“The inventory’s not the only problem, though,” I said. “Sheila’s just not one of us. She’s never going to fit in, and you know how Breezers are about strangers. Their minds are made up forever in the first ten seconds, and that lady does not make a good first impression. You’ll know what I mean when you meet her.”
“Unfortunately, I’m beginning to think you’re right,” Michael said. “She’s squandering her inheritance on something that doesn’t have a chance.”
“She has an inheritance?” I asked. “Is that where she got the money to open the shop? What’s the story on that?”
“It’s where she got her inventory – I heard she inherited most of it.”
“That’s right,” Myrtle said, taking up the story, because of course she knew. Rocky probably told her. “It was her grandmother. She died last year and left everything to Sheila because she knew she loved all that stuff so much. In my opinion, the old lady was a hoarder. You know, the kind of people who bring in everything they can get their hands on and won’t let go of it, even if it’s just junk? And this particular old lady had enough money to buy expensive stuff instead of the usual junk you get with a hoarder.”
The story was plausible enough, and it fit in with what Sheila had told me that morning. Still, it all sounded too good to be true. The age of extravagant inheritances ended with the World Wars.
Unnoticed by me, Myrtle had been watching me closely.
Finally, she said, “What is it, Taylor? You think she offed the old lady? You’ve got one of those feelings of yours, I can tell.”
“Of course not,” I said, rearranging my face. “But you should see her inventory. The stuff is gigantic. Her grandmother must have owned a castle. If Sheila is her heiress, what happened to the residence she was keeping all this stuff in?”
“She was the sole heir,” Myrtle said promptly. “The family was down to almost nothing, and the old lady couldn’t get along with anybody else. And the stuff was in some kind of old-money mansion in upstate New York. Sheila told Rocky all about it. She got a pile of money for the mansion itself, then decided she wanted to live someplace warm, so she moved here. But what I want to know is, why open an antique shop? She doesn’t need to work if she’s got a pile of money from the mansion, and if she loves all that stuff so much, why doesn’t she keep it for herself?”
I nodded. “If you’re right about all that, she could build something right on the beach next to the Russian mob and design all the rooms around her favorite monstrosities. Is she going to build here?”
“I don’t know. For now, she’s renting something in Cinnamon Beach. You know, where all the luxury condos are?”
I nodded wisely. “Just up the beach from the Russian mob.”
“Exactly!”
Chapter 10 – Doing The Math
Once the subject of Sheila had been exhausted, Myrtle had looked at the time and realized she was missing “appointment TV” on some channel or other and said good night. She doesn’t do streaming, and only gets frustrated when she tries to set the DVR. Standing up, she wished us good-night and patted the heads of the pets.
As soon as I was sure she was gone, I told Michael about Caden.
Word had reached him via the Tropical Breeze spy satellite already, of course, and after commenting that Caden sounded like an asset to the community (his exact words), he asked me if I knew anything else about that man, Dusty. I realized I’d forgotten all about Dusty, and I told him so.
“Well, I haven’t,” Michael said. “I’ve been thinking about him. You say he and Jasper have already met?”
“That’s right. At the diner, while he was supposed to be conferring with Ed. He ended up talking to Dusty more than Ed, though. I think Dusty settled Jasper down. I remember being glad he’d decided to tag along.” I quirked a smile. “Aside from just wanting to feed him. You know,” I said thoughtfully, “in spite of the way we met, the thought never entered my mind that Dusty was just a drifter. He doesn’t seem lost or without resources. There’s a sense of purpose about him, and in the time I spent with him, he never asked anybody for anything. We were just . . . happy to give. The money he got on the beach, the free meal at the diner. Things just seem to come to him naturally. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing, to just have what you need come to you, free of charge, just when you need it?”
Michael shrugged. “I never wanted anything for free. When you put it that way, it sounds like a fairytale. This Dusty must be a real charmer. Even Jasper liked him, and Jasper’s a funny old coot. He doesn’t usually trust strangers.”
He said it with a pensive look, not a smile, and I suspected that the City Councilman was coming out now, the one who considered himself a guardian of the community.
“For all I know, he might have moved on by now,” I said.
“He hasn’t,” Michael said, showing sudden knowledge. “I’ve been talking to people who live downtown – Rita, Rocky, even your girl Florence.”
“You called Florence? She didn’t mention it.”
“It was late this afternoon. You were probably on your way home by then. The only one who knew anything was Rita, and she said that Dusty had told her not to worry about him, he had a friend in the area somewhere. The way he said it, she wasn’t sure whether or not to believe him. Are you going back into town in the morning?”
“Yes. I invented a reason to go because I wanted to give Jasper a ride. His truck isn’t ready yet, and I hate to make him walk – which he would. Besides, I’ve been wanting to drop in on Rita. There’s something I want to talk to her about. She’s a girl with resources,” I said with an eyebrow wiggle.
It’s a standing joke around town that Rita’s mysterious past includes friends who will still help her tap into forbidden databases.
“When you pick up Jasper, you might suggest that Dusty could take on odd jobs he doesn’t want, or might be a useful assistant. Maybe Jasper could rent his back bedroom to him.”
“You just want to keep tabs on him, right? And you’re thinking you can use Jasper to do it?”
“No, I’m thinking that Jasper and Dusty have a lot in common. Jasper’s only about one hot meal and a stroke of luck away from living the way Dusty does. And if Jasper likes Dusty the way you say he does, he might want to help him out, that’s all.”
“Uh huh.”
It may have been true. After all, Michael hadn’t met Dusty yet, and the bare explanation of how he’d suddenly shown up on the beach did sound kind of squirrely if you hadn’t been there. Some things you just have to see for yourself.
“You know, it’s funny,” Michael said as I mulled these things over.
“What is?”
“That makes three. Three newcomers to Tropical Breeze, all in just a short time. Sheila Colson, this Dusty fellow of yours, and Caden Vance, the CPA.”
“You know, you’re right. Although aside from all of them coming here at once, I can’t imagine what they could possibly have in common. They’re completely different from one another, and they haven’t even met yet, as far as I know. And then there’s the fourth one.”
“There’s another one?” he said, concerned.
I nodded very seriously. “I can’t believe you haven’t heard about him. Didn’t you know that Jasper has a vampire hanging around his house?”
His face relaxed and he said, “Yeah, I heard that story, too. Poor Jasper. He’s so jumpy these days, and all because he got a shock from his power saw.”
“He did?”
“And it’s no wonder. His equipment’s so old it’s always breaking down, and when it does he just fixes it himself. Anyone could see the cord was frayed –”
“I thought he was jumpy because he fell off a ladder.”
“He did?”
We stared at one another.
“And then he banged up his truck,” I said.
