Poppy Done to Death

"What's put a bee in your bo

"Poppy," he said. He seemed to have trouble getting the name out.

I looked at him for a long moment. "So the rumor is true."

"Yeah, it's true. I was actually thinking of..."

"You weren't going to leave Liza

Cartland looked as though he was thinking of slapping me. And I would almost have deserved it if he had; not that I think hitting is ever excusable, but I'd been unbearably tactless.

"Poppy was so wonderful," he said. "She was so beautiful, and she was ... in intimate moments... she, ah..."

"Don't want to know," I said. "Too much information!"

He looked a little embarrassed. "Sorry. But you just don't know," he said. "She was everything to me. I wanted her to run off with me."

"Meaning an end to your political ambitions, your marriage, and your relationship with your children?"

"I could have patched things up politically, eventually," he said, sounding as if he really believed it. "Liza

"There's still a lot you don't know about Liza

"Roe, Liza

"But what?" I snapped.

"But Liza

I opened my mouth to rebut his blunt assessment, but I made myself think over what he'd said. Poppy hadn't exactly been a rocket scientist, but she was shrewd, and practical, and a follower of world and local events. And she was articulate in voicing her ideas and opinions. That's why she'd been tapped to be an Uppity Woman. Poppy was—had been—a very different animal than Liza

"You know as well as I know, Roe, that being attracted to someone physically is not the same as being her constant companion."

"But you're not Liza

"And the reason I did all that was at least partly to get away from Liza

"I've never heard of anyone ru

"I've done a lot of things lately I never thought I'd do."

I didn't like the sound of that. I took a step away from him. "When did you last see Poppy?"

"I saw her last night. John David was going to be at some meeting, so I stopped by."

"How'd you get in?"

"Went to the front door. I figured it might as well be an open visit, since it wasn't going to last that long, not with John David due back within the hour. I helped her bathe Chase," he said tenderly.

I could have beaten him on the head with a baseball bat. I was willing to bet Liza

"When did you leave?" I asked after an appreciable pause to regain control.

"I guess about... eight-thirty. She was wearing a bathrobe, since she'd gotten wet bathing Chase," he said dreamily. "Her hair was all curly from the humidity in the bathroom. She told me she'd think about divorcing John David. I think she would have done it."

"And who do you think killed her?" I asked, conversationally throwing cold water on his fantasies.

"Her husband," Cartland said, and he didn't look like an overweight lawyer anymore. He looked dangerous. "I know it was John David."

"And how do you know that?"

"She must have told him," Cartland said reasonably. "She must have told him she was going to leave him for me, and he killed her for it."

"Where were you all morning?"

"Oh for God's sake, Roe! I went to my office and worked until about eleven, when I left to speak at the Rotary Club in Mecklinburg." Mecklinburg was about fifteen miles away. "I was there, in front of about forty people, for the next hour and a half."

I was going to have to talk to Liza

"Okay, get out."

"What?"

"Get out. I've listened to as much as I'm going to."

Cartland looked stu

"Go to hell. You've just told me you've been cheating on your wife, who is a good friend of mine, with the wife of my brother-in-law; and you are evidently assuming that your wife would be happy to raise two sons of yours on her own, while you raise John David's boy! You actually think Poppy would have left John David? You're a moron! Get out! And keep your grief to yourself!"

I had herded Cartland to the front door, snapping at his heels like a sheepdog, and now he left in something of a hurry. I slammed the door shut and glowered at it.

For a few minutes, I hovered outside Phillip's door, afraid we might have wakened him. But there was no movement from the room, no rustle of sheets. Struck with the sudden fear that he'd crawled out of the window, I opened the door a crack, and was reassured by the sight of a big bare foot hanging off the end of the bed.

I eased the door shut as silently as I could, then I hovered in the hall, trying to think of what I should do next.

Amazingly, it was only 5:00 p.m. Since it was November, the daylight was almost gone, but I thought of some errands I needed to run. I hastily wrote a note and stuck it to Phillip's doorknob. After checking his clean clothes for sizes, I pitched them back in the dryer and set off for the small branch of Davidson's that Lawrenceton was proud to have. I got my brother a package of underwear, a bundle of socks, a pair of jeans and a pair of khakis, and two shirts, a T-shirt and a nice sports shirt, and a jacket. Crossing over to Wal-Mart, I quickly purchased a comb and brush, a toothbrush, and a razor and some shaving cream. I grabbed some gloves, too; his hands had been bare.

Satisfied that I could clothe and clean him, I made one more stop, at the grocery store. I had a dim awareness that teenage boys ate a lot, but I wasn't really sure what they ate a lot of. I got some frozen pizzas, some Bagel Bites, and some egg rolls. I got some milk, too, and a bottle of soda.

By the time I'd unloaded all this booty and folded Phillip's dry clothes, it was seven o'clock. I called Mother to find out what was happening. She sounded exhausted and tearful, and she said John wasn't feeling very well. After a long, long "interview" with Arthur Smith, John David had arrived at the house to assume his role as chief mourner. Mother thanked me from the heart for ru

"I'm sorry if you've had to take the fallout from people who were really mad at me," I said. The thought did cross my mind that it seemed to take very little to make Avery angry with me. "I had to stay with Phillip, to get him straightened out."

"I do wish all this hadn't happened at the same time." I knew Mother had to have been really distressed even, to voice that much complaint about something that simply couldn't be helped. "John told Avery that you'd done more practical things to help our family than had even occurred to him. John, that is."

"That was sweet of John," I said, abruptly aware of how fond I was of my stepfather. He was a better man than my real father. I felt cold and disloyal for that thought instantly, but I made myself face it and admit it was true. God wasn't going to strike me dead for admitting my own father wasn't a perfect man.