Tom Hale was out of town at a convention and had taken Billy Elliot with him, so I was pretty much done for the morning. I figured by now the news was probably out about Mr. Harwick, and since one of the reporters had seemed to recognize me, I didn’t feel like making an appearance at the diner. I knew everyone would be full of questions, and I was trying my best to forget about yesterday’s events. Also I imagined Judy would want to know all about my D-word with Ethan, and if she found out I was planning on canceling it she’d probably want to give me a good beating.
At the intersection of Beach Road and Midnight Pass, I turned left and followed Higel’s dogleg over the north bridge. Another left and I followed Tamiami Trail around the bay, where tall-masted ships rode at anchor, their masts sparkling in the bright sunshine. A quick zag off course, a quick swing through Whole Foods for some soup and some other goodies and a bouquet of daisies, and then I was back on Tamiami Trail to the Bayfront Village, a posh retirement condo and one of the worst architectural disasters ever to blight Sarasota.
Bayfront is home to several hundred well-to-do seniors who either don’t notice the folly of mixing Ionic, Gothic, Elizabethan, and Colonial architecture all in one building or are too busy having fun to care. The interior design is as bad as the exterior, with murals of foxhunting scenes keeping company with paintings of circus clowns, the Mahabharata, and bucolic fields of sunflowers and bluebonnets. But happy, energetic seniors bounce past the bizarre decor on their way to tennis or golf or theater, and not one of them seems to mind living in an interior decorator’s living version of hell. These are what I call “don’t-give-a-damn” seniors. They’re more active than most people half their age, they’re having more fun than most people half their age, and, well, basically they don’t give a damn.
The concierge waved to me from her sleek French Provincial desk and gestured for me to go on up. As soon as I got in the elevator, the knot I had felt in my chest ever since I’d discovered Mr. Harwick’s body loosened a bit. Just knowing that Cora Mathers was waiting for me on the sixth floor made everything feel a little lighter.
Cora is eighty-something years old, and I am lucky to know her, although the way we met is not the prettiest story in history. Her granddaughter, Marilee, had been a friend and a client, and to make a long story short, Marilee was murdered by a crazed neighbor. Marilee had already set her grandmother up in Bayfront Village with enough money to live comfortably for the rest of her life. The remainder of her estate, which was sizable to put it mildly, was willed to her cat, a blue Abysinnian named Ghost. She made me the executor of Ghost’s estate.
Once I found a good home for Ghost, I put the estate in Tom Hale’s hands and have pretty much avoided thinking about it ever since. After Marilee’s funeral, I continued to stop in now and then to make sure that Ghost was being well cared for, and I also visited Cora at least once a week. At first I’d done it out of a feeling of misplaced guilt and responsibility, but that had changed, and Cora and I had become genuine friends. I don’t think there’s any topic that we haven’t thoroughly discussed, some of which would be a surprise to most people. Women my age and women Cora’s age aren’t assumed to have much in common, especially when it comes to romance and sex and love, but that’s a lot of hooey. The only difference between Cora and me is that she has more wrinkles and more experience. Otherwise, inside our skins we’re both the same.
I smelled Cora’s apartment as soon as the elevator doors opened. About once a week, she makes bread in an ancient bread-making machine. At some point in the kneading process, which Cora keeps a secret, she throws in a cup of frozen semisweet chocolate chips. The result is a chewy bread with a crunchy crust filled with little lakes of oozy chocolate. Cora insists that the bread be torn into hunks rather than sliced, and when those hunks are slathered with butter, I guarantee that strong women will swoon and muscled men will whimper with weak-kneed delight.
The concierge had alerted Cora that I was on the way up, so she was outside her door waiting for me when I stepped out of the elevator and went down the hall towards her apartment. Cora is the size of a malnourished sixth grader, with knobby little knees and freckled arms. Her hair is thin and fine as goose down and floats above her scalp in a cottony cloud. She whooped when she saw me, rising up and down on her toes in a semblance of jumping for joy.
I said, “Do I smell chocolate bread?”
“It’s still cooling! What’s that you’ve got?” As greedy as a child, she grabbed the Whole Foods bag and peered inside. “Oh, goody goody! I just love their soup!”
“There’s some beautiful blood oranges, too, and a slice of apple pie.”
“I’ll have the pie for supper and the soup for dessert.”
I followed her into the apartment, practically stepping in place at times because she moved so slowly. Her condo was lovely, with glass doors opening to a long sun porch facing the Gulf. I knew that if Marilee were alive today, she’d be happy to see how Cora has turned her little apartment into such a lovely and comfortable place to live. It was all pink marble and turquoise linen and shafts of sunlight.
She stopped at a bar separating a minuscule kitchen from the rest of the room. While she lifted the sweating container of frozen soup from the bag, I went around her to the kitchen, where a fresh round loaf of chocolate bread was steaming on a wooden board on the counter. Cora always keeps her kettle warm, just in case company comes, so it only took a minute to put tea bags in a Brown Betty pot and pour hot water on them. While I got down cups and saucers, Cora took a chair at a skirted ice cream table by the windows.
She said, “Now, don’t slice that bread. It’s better if you tear off pieces.”
She always says that.
I rummaged in the refrigerator for butter to add to the tea tray. “I know.”
I always say that.
I put the daisies in a little pink vase by the sink and brought the bread and the tea tray out to the table.
Cora cleared her throat, carefully sliding her saucer and cup closer. “Was it you that found that drowned man?”
I sighed. “How did you know about that?”
In the sunlight from the glass doors, her face seemed to fracture into millions of tiny, fine lines. “Well, Dixie, the news said the man was found by his pet sitter, and it was on Siesta Key. Who else could it be?”
I sat down and poured the tea. “It was awful.”
“I imagine so.” She pushed the bread toward me with a smile. “This should help.”
I broke off a small chunk and buttered it. It was so warm there were little curls of steam rising up and the butter melted right into it. I put it in my mouth and allowed myself a tiny moment of sheer bliss.
“Oh my God,” I moaned. “I needed that.”
Cora took a piece herself, and we sat in silence for a while, luxuriating in the simple joy of it. Occasionally Cora hummed a little tune to herself. I loved that we could sit in perfect silence and feel completely comfortable doing it. That’s a sign of real friendship.
After a while she said, “So what do you hear from that fellow of yours?”
She meant Guidry. “He’s not my fellow anymore, remember? He ran away to New Orleans.”
She nodded. I could tell she was disappointed, but Cora wasn’t one to cry over spilt milk, and I think she understood why I couldn’t follow Guidry to New Orleans, even if she didn’t completely approve of it.
I smiled coyly. “But I am having dinner with someone tonight.”
Her eyes brightened. “Oh? Do tell!”
“Don’t get too excited. It’s not that big a deal.”
“It’s with that Ethan Crane fellow, I can tell by the look in your eyes.”
“Oh, stop it, no you can’t.”
“Really? So who’s your date with tonight?”