Who would run down first, I wondered, the children or the dog? My bets were on the dog.
The picnic was in full swing when Brad Perry stuck his head over the fence. "Is this a private party or can anyone come? I can bring my own garbage!"
Paul looked up from the hamburger he was demolishing and grinned. "Sure, come on over. But don't worry about the garbage. We gave at the office."
I used my napkin to wipe the mustard off his chin.
Brad arrived carrying a six pack of Bud and a large white envelope. He handed the envelope to me. "Here, Hannah, this is for you."
The envelope had the Victory Mutual logo embossed in the corner where the return address should have been. "What's this?"
Brad dropped his six pack in the ice chest, then popped a can for himself. "Just a little something. Harrison Garvin wants to show his gratitude."
Chloe scampered up and wrapped both arms around my leg. "Gramma, Coco ticked me."
I tucked the envelope under my arm, bent down and wiped her runny nose with the hem of my bright green, Kiss My Asparagus apron. "That means Coco loves you, Chloe."
"Okay." Chloe twirled away like a ballerina on speed.
"Now, where was I?" I said.
"You were about to open that envelope," Paul reminded me. "We're all dying of curiosity."
I held it up to the sun, trying to see through it. "It's probably a certificate Garvin had Donna Hudgins print out on her computer," I joked.
"Go ahead, Mrs. Ives, open it!" My son-in-law still could not bring himself to call me Hannah.
I sat down at the table and used a plastic knife to slit open the envelope. There was a letter inside, and clipped to the letter was a check. A "little something"? I nearly had a heart attack. The check was for $25,000.
"Well," I said. "Well, well, well."
Brad was grinning like a jack-o'-lantern.
I grinned back. "You knew!"
"Of course I knew. Frankly, it was the least Garvin could do. Two crooked underwriters unmasked, millions of dollars saved."
"Millions?"
"Millions and millions, as it turns out, in fraudulently obtained life insurance policies."
"Can I cook marshmallows, Gramma?" Chloe was back.
I slipped the check back into the envelope. "Later, Chloe, after it gets dark."
When everyone went home, I sat in our backyard swing, gently rocking. A soft breeze caressed my cheek, lifted my hair, then drifted on to coax a tune out of the wind chimes my sister Ruth had hung in our sycamore tree. Across the yard the embers on the barbecue grill glowed a soft orange. For the first time in many weeks I was content. It had been only a month since Valerie and I ran the Race for the Cure®, but it seemed like a hundred years. Next year, I knew, I would run the race in memory of Valerie. She would have liked that.
Paul had gone to the kitchen to fetch "a surprise." He returned almost at once, carrying two glasses and a bottle of wine.
He held up the wine. "Guess what label?"
"I can't imagine."
"Guess!"
"Could it be," I ventured, "a Michael LeBois Pinot Noir Santa Maria Highlands 2001?”
It could.
Holding both glasses in one hand, Paul poured the wine. "I thought you'd like to see what you missed when you dumped this down the drain."
I didn't want to admit that I'd already held an impromptu wine tasting when I took a healthy swig of the stuff down in Steele's ritzy wine cellar, so I simply smiled and plucked the glass from Paul's outstretched hand. I swirled it, I sniffed it, I put it to my lips. "Ummmm," I said, "quite a change from the wine that comes in boxes."
"Enormously complex and concentrated," he agreed, parodying the label. "With a sharply focused core of wild berry and blackberry."
"And don't forget, hints of espresso, hazelnut and smoky oak." I had read the label, too.
We sipped, we swung, and he reached for my hand.
"What are you going to do with the money Garvin gave you?" Paul asked.
"It's a lot of money, Paul. We could save it I suppose."
"That wouldn't be any fun."
"How would you feel about a cruise?"
"Around the world on the QE2?"
"Don't be silly. Twenty-five thousand dollars will buy only one ticket on the QE2."
"So, who're you going to go with?" His eyes sparkled in the lamplight.
"Steele's all tied up," I quipped. "So's Jablonsky."
"I should say so. Murder, kidnapping, conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud, and money laundering." Still holding his wineglass, Paul ticked them off on his fingers. "How many counts was it?"
"I lost count."
"Brian certainly won't be taking any more cruises."
"No."
"What's going to happen to Miranda?" Paul wondered.
"That's one story that has a happy ending," I said. "Valerie has a married sister who lives on a horse ranch in Wyoming. Miranda's going to live with her aunt."
"Ahhhh." Paul's arm snaked around my shoulders. "I do love happy endings."
"Me, too. As surrogate parents, The Honorable and Mrs. Padgett certainly wouldn't win any parenting prizes."
"Speaking of happy endings," Paul said, "the Academy's legal officer called today. Those basketball players I was tutoring? They've been cleared."
I slapped my husband's knee. "Way to go, Paul!" I was still pissed off at the Academy for dragging my husband into the cheating scandal, but the students had been struggling, and when they turned in solid B's on an exam, well, eyebrows were raised.
Paul laughed. "Turns out they studied, Hannah. They actually learned the material!"
"Imagine that!"
"You know," he mused, after we'd swung quietly for a while. “For $25,000, two people could go on the QE2, but only half as far."
I rested my head on his chest. "When do you want to leave?"
"Now would be nice."
I smiled into his shirt. It was lovely having a husband willing to support my dreams, even if we both knew I'd probably end up investing the money in something far less exciting than a trip to Singapore or Bora Bora-like my IRA.
"Garvin was most generous," Paul remarked.
"Oh, I don't know. I think he felt a little guilty."
"Guilty? Why would Garvin feel guilty?"
"Well, after he had that meeting with his staff and everybody was so impressed with my report, yadda yadda yadda, he called me into his office and asked if there was anything he could do for me, anything at all.
"And so, I told him I wanted to buy a life insurance policy. I already have that policy for $250,000 with Mass Mutual, of course, but I had the idea that I'd like to be insured for twice that amount. If I croak, it might be nice to leave something more substantial for Emily and the grandchildren, although I think I might have to change my mind about that." I held out my wineglass for a refill. "Emily cornered me tonight and told me that Dante is thinking about opening his own spa."
"My God!"
"It gets worse. They're looking for investors."
Paul threw back his head and laughed long and hard into the night sky. "Well, I certainly hope you aren't planning to shuffle off this mortal coil for that!”
"Don't worry, it didn't happen. Garvin apologized all over the place, but said he couldn't write me a policy. Seems that under current Victory Mutual guidelines, I'm uninsurable because of my medical history." I turned so I could look into my husband's eyes. "You are married to a bad risk."
Paul tipped up my chin and kissed me on the mouth. "Risk, schmisk."
“I still have that other policy, though." I sat up. "You know," I said, poking him in the chest with every word, "at $250,000 I'm worth more to you dead than alive."
Paul captured my hand and pulled me close. "Hannah, love, exactly the opposite is the truth."
About the Author
Marcia Talley’s first novel, Sing It to Her Bones, won the 1998 Malice Domestic Grant, was a Featured Alternate of the Mystery Guild, and was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Her short stories have been featured in mystery magazines and collections. A former librarian and computer specialist, she lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with her husband, a professor at the U.S. Naval Academy. When she isn’t traveling or sailing, she is busy writing the next Hannah Ives mystery.