“Dix, will you see if there are any ice cubes, please?”
I jumped up and checked the freezer compartment of her tiny refrigerator — moved around the frosted bags of tiny peas (no one ever eats the tiny peas, so why bother with them?), Pizza Pops and what looked like a vodka/fruit slush concoction.
“No ice cubes, Mom.”
“You sure about that?”
“Sure.”
“Very sure?”
“Yes, very sure.”
Mother stepped up then down from the little step stool — bag of multi-colored drink umbrellas in hand. But she didn’t rush around the kitchen in usual company mode. She dallied, and Katt Dodd rarely dallied in this life. I took that as my cue.
“What’s going on, Mom? Why do I get a fax from the local Sheriff’s Department telling me you’re in legal trouble?”
“Well, Dix, because I told them to fax you. How else do you think they’d have gotten your fax number?”
That wasn’t what I meant, and she knew it.
“How much do you know?” she asked.
“The Sheriff’s Deputy faxed me that—”
“Oh, Noel Almond? You’ll like him. So handsome! Beth Mary MacKenzie called ‘dibs’ as soon as she saw him drive into the yard and step out of his cruiser. But she didn’t have her teeth in so we all pretended not to hear her. And Mona Roberts — she’s in Suite 222 — just about fainted. Which didn’t go over well with Big Eddie Baskin, let me tell you. I think he’s sweet on her. I’d never seen the woman looking so pale! And Tish McQueen — she’s staying with Mona for a while — out and out flirted with him.”
“Big Eddie?” I said sarcastically. “Let me guess, Big Eddie is the guy who wears leather, slicks back his hair and does the wheelies on his motorized cart? Oh, and I bet he wears at least a half dozen gold chains dangling down in his wide open shirt collar.”
“Don’t be a smartass, Dix You have no right to mock my friends.”
Okay, she was right. That was uncalled for. It was just so damn frustrating trying to get Mother to focus. And truthfully, I was worried. But it was always like that. Well, since Dad died, anyway. Mother had always been fun loving, but had so much responsibility taking care of Dad in his later years. And stress. And though she never let on to Peaches or me, I knew there was more worry behind her smiling face. Peaches might be the one with the academic smarts, but I was the one who could read people. And I could read the strain on her face no matter how well she hid it behind the Pinch-Me Pink.
“Sorry, Mom,” I said. “I’m an idiot.”
I waited for her to correct me on that.
And waited….
“Er, did I get something right?”
“Okay, young lady. But those chains and charms are very fashionable these days.”
I couldn’t wait to meet, Eddie.
And mom couldn’t wait to tell me more about Noel Almond.
“Deputy Almond is tall and so good looking. Deepest blue eyes. Honey-blond hair and he does this adorable comb through thing with his fingers. And that body!” She scrunched her shoulders up and down as if hugging herself. “Broad shoulders, long legs. And Dix, if I’m any judge of these things — and I am — Deputy Noel is so goddamn wonderfully hung—”
“Mother! I don’t want to discuss how well hung the Deputy is!”
She feigned shock. Poorly. With a dramatic hand to chest gesture. She swung open the door to the living room and called out to Mrs. P, “Jane, does Dix always talk so filthy?”
“She does.” Mrs. P paused in her channel surfing. “Gotta watch that one of yours, Katt. The words that come out of her would make a sailor blush. You should have heard her in the car on the way here. I didn’t even know some of them words, to tell you the truth.”
She let the door swing shut again. “Why, Dix Dodd!” Mother said. “I was going to say the Deputy is so hung up on finding out the truth about the strange happenings around here.”
“No you weren’t”
She grinned. “No, I wasn’t.”
“Mother, do you really think it’s a good time for shlong jokes?
“Is there ever a bad time for them?”
She had me there. Despite myself, I finally smiled. “Good to see you, Mother.”
“Dix,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
I let out an exasperated sigh. And by the eye roll I got from my mother, she knew my fakes as well as I knew hers. But this was serious. And I had to get her to realize that. “Mom, no matter how good looking Deputy No Nuts is, or how grandly he’s hung…” (oh I wanted to go places with this one myself) “…up on finding the truth, that’s not really important right now.”
She looked at me strangely, a minute. Then snorted a laugh. “Oh I get it — Noel Almond, No Nuts! That’s good, Dix.”
I guess my penchant for naming male police officers wasn’t restricted to Detective Richard Head, (aka Dickhead) of Marport City. But come on, his name was Noel Almond. That was a kick me sign waiting to happen.
I pulled off a strip of paper towel to dust my Dorito-orange fingertips on. I thought it would be easier to start with the thefts. Hit less close to home. “So, tell me about the missing jewels.”
She hauled out the small cutting board and began chopping. Her back to me, she began talking. “They started about two months ago. Vanessa Trueman’s ruby earrings went missing. She’s a dear, but a little on the forgetful side, so we all just sort of thought they’d surely turn up somewhere. But then Quinn Foster’s diamond ring went missing, the next day Annamarie Tildman checked her jewelry box and all the diamonds out of her antique broach were missing. Plucked right out!. The alarm went up, Dix. This wasn’t just a matter of a few things going missing. This was a shitload.”
I hated to ask. But I had to. “The diamond ring, the one Daddy got you, Mom … our lucky diamond … is it…?”
“It’s safe. I don’t keep it in my jewelry box. I keep it in the wall safe, behind that picture of you and Peaches Marie that I love so well.”
I knew the picture. Peaches and I had been 5 and 7 respectively. Playing at the beach. Building a sandcastle while the waves played in the background. And over the two sun-drenched smiling Dodd girls, our mother’s shadow … holding the camera in one hand, waving with the other. And you could feel the delight of her doing so.
I also knew the safe. Well, not it specifically, but a zillion just like it. The Wildoh condos were fairly new, but cookie-cutter similar in construction. Just like the eat-in kitchen and the convection oven, the mini wall safe was no doubt standard in all the condos, though each would have its own combination.
“I didn’t steal the jewels, Dix,” Mom said.
“I never said you did. Never thought it for a minute.”
“No, but I wanted you to hear it from me. We have to be upfront about everything with each other. That’s what families do.”
I swallowed down my guilt at hiding Dylan away. For her own good, I reminded myself.
“There’s a lot of … a lot of suspicion around here. And a lot of it is aimed at me.”
“Why?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Well, I didn’t know at first. But … but with Frankie’s … hopping off like he did. People just naturally turned their suspicions on me. They stayed stuck on me.”
I wasn’t suspicious of my mother, but was starting to have suspicions about Frankie. I kept them to myself for the moment. “And what about Tish, Beth Mary and Mona? Do they suspect you?”
“Don’t underestimate the power of female friendships, Dix. Mona wouldn’t ever say a word against me. And by default therefore, neither would Tish. And there are others here who are so very friendly. You’ll meet them all tomorrow.”