“Your best bet is to check with the nurses’ licensing board. They might have an address for her.” He held up a hand mottled with age spots. “But if she doesn’t practice anymore, then she probably didn’t renew her certificate.”
“Could you check for me?” Skye turned her head to one side and looked at him through her lashes. “You know, a well-known doctor such as yourself would get a lot better results than a nobody like me.”
“Okay.” Doc Zello slapped her lightly on the cheek. “But don’t think you’re fooling me for one minute. I just want whoever killed Antonia to be brought to justice.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
They sat quietly while the waitress delivered their order and refilled their iced teas.
The meal was almost over when Doc Zello spoke again. “You know, I might have been your grandfather.”
“What?”
“I dated your grandmother before she married Angelo. I always regretted not asking her to marry me. She was an amazing woman. You remind me a lot of her. Once she got an idea into her head, she’d never let go until she was satisfied. And she always wanted things to be fair.”
“Mom said the same thing right after Grandma died, but I never noticed a similarity between us.”
“Antonia saw it. That’s why she was telling you the family history.” He pushed his plate away.
“It did seem important to her that some kind of permanent record be made.” Skye used her napkin and put it aside. “Too bad it’ll never be finished now.”
“History is never finished.”
Trixie was full of conversation and high spirits, halting her chatter only long enough for Skye to show the man at the Scumble River Recreational Club her identification card.
They drove down a narrow gravel road toward the beach. The lane was bordered by grassy areas dotted with trees and picnic tables. Most of them were occupied by young women and small children.
Locker rooms bracketed a crude pavilion that contained a soda machine and a pay telephone. They changed quickly into their swimsuits; neither wanted to linger in the slimy, mold-filled building.
The beach wasn’t crowded. Skye had noted early on that most families seemed to swim in the morning. She and Trixie climbed down the concrete steps and walked along the shore until they found a relatively isolated spot.
After helping Skye to smooth out an old bedspread on the sand, Trixie peeled off the oversized T-shirt she was wearing. Underneath, a cherry-red bikini glowed against her tan skin.
Skye glanced down at her pale limbs. “Trixie, how’d you get tanned already?”
“Tanning booth at your brother’s salon. How come you don’t use it?”
“No time, I guess.”
“Want to take a dip?” Trixie was rocking from foot to foot on the hot sand.
“Sure. Race you to the raft.” Skye tossed her cover-up on the blanket, revealing a dark purple one-piece maillot.
Trixie made it to the float a millisecond before Skye and they both flung themselves, panting, on the bleached wood.
“When did you get to be such a fast swimmer?” Trixie asked. “I was on my college swim team, and you nearly beat me just now.”
“I swim a lot. Here when the weather is nice and at the high school when it gets cold.”
“Oh. Cool. Now that I’ll be on staff we can swim together.” Trixie rolled to her side and rested her head on her hand. “So, have you found out anything else about your grandmother’s murder?”
“Some.” Skye was uncomfortable sharing information. She was out of the habit of exchanging casual gossip because most of what she heard at work was confidential.
“Do you suspect Hugo and Victoria?”
“Well, Grandma’s farm would be worth a lot of money if it could be subdivided into a housing development. And while Hugo wouldn’t get the money directly, I’m sure Uncle Dante would be very generous to his only child.”
Trixie shook her head and water flew from her gamin-like haircut. “Yeah, but didn’t you say Dante wants to continue to farm?”
“True, but he is sixty already. Maybe Hugo felt he could talk his dad into his way of thinking.”
“So, is Dante in the clear?”
Skye squeezed the moisture from her chestnut curls. “No, I knew Grandma’s care was costing a bundle. I mean, do the math. Mrs. J was there twenty-four hours, six days a week. They were only paying her five dollars an hour, but that’s still over seven hundred a week. Plus a couple hundred for the woman who stayed on Sundays. So that’s over four thousand a month, or nearly fifty thousand a year. Because of that, it turns out they might have had to start selling off pieces of the farm to support her. The lawyer said it would have all depended on how the crops were this year.”
“Wow, it’s a good thing my mother-in-law didn’t need to have someone take care of her for too long.” Trixie grimaced. “Oh, that reminds me, how’s your Aunt Minnie? Do you think she attempted suicide because she felt guilty about killing your grandmother?”
Skye scooted to the edge of the raft and dangled her feet in the water. “She’s still in the hospital. And actually I’m wondering if her so-called suicide attempt wasn’t really a murder attempt.” Skye told her about Minnie’s aversion to pills.
“Why would anyone want to kill her?”
“Maybe she knows something. I’ve been doing a little asking around and there’s a lot more to her past than I ever knew.”
Trixie shaded her eyes. “I thought your grandmother was telling you the family history.”
“She was, but we didn’t get to my aunts’ and uncles’ generation.”
“How about Minnie’s daughters?” Trixie eased back into the water.
“They certainly thought there were more jewelry and valuables than there turned out to be.” Skye followed Trixie into the water and they headed slowly back to shore. “Their husbands spilled the beans about their misconception at Grandma’s funeral lunch.”
“Of course you don’t suspect your own mother or brother.”
“No, thank goodness they have alibis. And I really haven’t found a motive for Aunt Mona, besides the fact that she’s a mean-spirited, sanctimonious bitch.” Skye filled in Trixie about the essay contest at school as they emerged from the water and crossed the hot sand.
“What a horrible thing to do to a child. And to have to sacrifice all your hard work with him. How awful for you too.”
Skye settled on the spread and began to apply sunscreen. Trixie joined her and oiled her own limbs.
Skye lay down in the bright sun and was almost asleep when Trixie’s voice woke her. “I know how to check to see who filled Minnie’s prescription.”
“How?”
“My cousin works at the pharmacy in town. She can check the records for us.”
“But isn’t that illegal?” Skye asked.
“Only if we get caught.”
CHAPTER 19
Five, Six, More Nasty Tricks
Before Skye dropped her off, Trixie agreed to call her cousin that evening. They parted with promises to stay in close touch.
As Skye went past her parents’ place she noticed her dad out in the yard, and on an impulse she pulled the Buick into the gravel drive. She had always found it difficult to talk to her father. His clipped way of speaking, and lack of interest in anything not farm related, made it hard to have a conversation with him.
Won’t Dad be surprised? I actually want to talk about agriculture. She grinned as she turned off the motor.
“Mom home?” Skye asked, approaching her father.
“Nope, she’s working afternoons. Just left.” Jed sat on his haunches looking at a snowblower that he’d turned upside down.