Ordinarily, Mother would have sought any excuse to avoid talking to Mavis Madden. She didn’t think any more highly of the old busybody than Cassie did; but to teach us a lesson in “southern lady manners” she hurried to the phone. Cassie took her seat on the patio and chuckled as she related Mavis’s latest bit of tattle.
“According to Rowan Spring’s own unofficial town crier, William Budd is growing pot in his basement.”
I sneaked a handful of Mother’s pastries and popped one in my mouth before I replied. “And just…mmmm, yum…how did Mavis figure this out?”
Cassie poked around on the hors d’oeuvre tray, discarding capers and meticulously removing fresh dill sprigs from the open-faced smoked salmon sandwiches. “She saw him carrying sacks of manure and potting soil from his truck down through the cellar door.”
Cassie licked her fingers and flicked a green peppercorn at a greedy Bluejay whose appetite had overcome his natural caution. The bird caught her gift in mid-air and flew off to a branch in the chestnut tree to savor his bounty.
“Personally,” confided my daughter, “I think Mr. Budd could use few tokes of pot.”
“Cassie!”
“I know how you feel about drugs, Mom, but you have to admit there never was a more uptight soul in all the world than that poor little man. For goodness sakes,” she asked, changing the subject, “why does Gran have to mess up perfectly delicious food with all of these silly peppercorns and capers?”
I smiled, remembering. “You’re so like your father, Cassie.”
“Am I really, Mom?” she asked softly. “How? Tell me, please.”
She uncurled her long slim legs and came to sit by me on the chaise lounge. Her dark hair hung like a shiny curtain around the porcelain oval of her face—her almost-black, brown eyes sparkling under soft, sooty, eyelashes. “Tell me about when I was a little girl,” she begged. For a fleeting moment I saw a much younger child in the arms of the handsome father whose memory she adored. Hot tears welled behind my eyelids, and I had to clear my throat before I spoke.
“We lived in a garden,” I whispered. “Not so unlike this one—except that it was bigger, and yet smaller at the same time.” I always began the story the same way, and Cassie knew it well.
“I know, I know,” she laughed. “Bigger outside and smaller in the middle.”
“Yes, “ I nodded, smiling. “In the center of the house was an open area—a tiled courtyard—filled with flowers and a fountain.”
“Which tinkled merrily all day and all night.”
“Hey, who’s telling this story?”
“You, Mom,” she laughed, snuggling down next to me. “But don’t forget the part about the parrots.”
“Of course, not. That’s the best….”
“Paisley!” shouted Mother in a shrill voice from the porch. “Paisley, come quick! Oh, dear! Something dreadful has happened!”
Chapter Two
Cassie and I raced side by side down the walk. She reached the porch door first, slamming it open for the both of us.
“Gran! Are you all right?” she cried.
Mother was holding the portable phone in a limp hand. Her face was almost as white as the pearls around her slender neck.
“Mother,” I gasped. “What in the world?”
“That charming little girl—Nell Jane Bradley—the one who brought us the thank you card—she has disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” I whispered in a hoarse voice. “Where?”
“Don’t be a goose, Paisley!” answered Mother, her voice sharp with worry. “If we knew that, then the child wouldn’t be missing!”
My stomach was doing flip-flops—ham and cheese pastries churned around and around in a sea of peppercorn acid. I had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting, and the sour aftertaste made me even more nauseous.
“You okay, Mom? You look a little green around the gills.”
“I…I’m fine. It’s just that….”
I made it to the sink in the nick of time.
“Cassandra, don’t stand there with your mouth open. Hand your mother a damp towel. I’ll make some tea.”
“Tell me more, Mother,” I asked, after my second soothing sip of Earl Grey.
“Very well. If you don’t ask any more silly questions.”
I bit my tongue and let her continue in her own roundabout way.
“I was talking to Mavis. Well, actually, I was trying to get out of talking to Mavis, when the phone made that annoying beeping sound.”
“Call waiting,” I prompted.
“Yes! Well, you know how I feel about that rude bit of business.”
“Yes, Gran. We know you never answer ‘call waiting’,” sighed Cassie. “That’s why I never have a date.”
“Yeah, right!” I laughed weakly, eager to throw off my sense of foreboding. We also knew that my daughter was so particular where men were concerned that even Prince Charming would have to submit a resume.
“Well, it is rude,” insisted Mother. “But this time it was unrelenting and I had to answer to put a stop to it. One of the soccer mothers was on the other line. She said that Nell Jane never returned from delivering the card to us. The others waited for a few minutes, then went to look for her. When the search turned up nothing, they called for help. The woman wanted to warn us that the police and the emergency medical crew would be using our driveway to get back to the field where the children were playing.”
At that moment we heard the swift crunch of gravel as Chief Andy Joiner’s police cruiser and two more like it raced up the drive and down pass the carriage house towards the lane. They were followed closely by the ambulance and the Lakeland County EMS.
“Well, thanks for the warning, Mother,” I said, sarcastically. “It’s a good thing Watson wasn’t in the driveway!” Watson was my bilious green Jeep Cherokee—my pride and joy.
“Or Aggie!” Cassie added. “She would have been squashed! By the way, where is Aggie? I haven’t seen her for hours.”
Agatha Christie, Aggie for short, was Cassie’s ill-tempered Lhasa Apso. The dog was almost four years old now, but she hadn’t mellowed one little bit with age. In fact, she was even more evil than the benighted day Cassie when picked her out from the rest of her littermates and brought her to live with us. The dog was cute—of that there could be no doubt. She was white and soft, and as fuzzy as a cotton ball; but she didn’t like being touched, moved, nudged, or reprimanded. She had bitten me each and every time I had done any one of the above.
Aggie could usually be found in the middle of my bed on my favorite down pillow. Cassie knew that, but I reminded her, anyway.
“We all have to make sure our own little chicks are okay,” said Mother with a sad smile, as she watched Cassie rush off to my bedroom. “Maybe I’ll call your sister tonight. We haven’t talked for two weeks.”
“Right!” I laughed—glad for the sound and feel of it. “She could have gotten married and divorced at least twice in two weeks.”
“Paisley! Don’t be so unpleasant. You should rejoice that Velvet appears to have finally found happiness.”
“Found