Chapter 13
“You don’t mind if we sit here, do you, chickadee? It’s just vitamin D is so important for our mental well-being.”
Carefree Neena has stripped off her purple outer layer and is now basking on a lounge chair beside the rippling Mediterranean
pool. A group of women are doing water aerobics with little colorful foam weights across the way. Neena’s hand is outstretched
with a crystal goblet, and a waiter rushes over with more foamy pink drink. Sunlight stretches across the length of the deck,
so much so I pull down my sunglasses to keep from squinting at the glossy, blinding marble statuettes at every corner. At
the far end of the boat, a group is clustered around the helm, each standing at an easel, each with a paintbrush in hand.
I’m not gonna lie.
It’s a weird place to conduct an investigation.
This was never a setting in any of Hugh’s books.
Nash, in true bodyguard fashion, stands a few feet away, his eyes cautiously bouncing from one person to the next, as if expecting to see some elderly woman pull a gun out of her foam noodle.
“How are you feeling, Neena?” I say.
My phone is quietly beside me, the Notes app open and ready for typing.
Surreptitious is the plan.
Although to be honest, I can only appear so casual when I’m stretched out in black work leggings on a lounge chair.
“Awful, of course. Thank you, young man,” she says to the waiter, winking at him as he tops off her glass. “Just awful.”
I purse my lips.
“Who was it—Ricky perhaps?—who said you’ve been taking some pills to help your nerves?” I say casually.
“Yes. Quite the stuff indeed,” she replies, then takes a sip of her drink.
I frown. I’m not so sure alcohol plus medicine is a good idea, but now is not the time.
“Why?” she says, turning to look at me. “You need some? I have a wonderful tele-visit doctor—”
“Oh no,” I say quickly. “Appreciate the offer. I’m good. So.”
“So,” she says back.
How do I do this again?
How did Hugh have his detectives start off?
I’m having a case of too many bookish examples running through my head.
“I guess . . . we should start at the beginning.”
“It’s a very good place to start,” she replies, then giggles at herself. “Sound of Music.”
“I’m aware. Okay.” A pause. “Right.”
I’m floundering here.
It’s a little bit of a unique situation.
I’m not exactly a detective off the streets.
How do you start an interview with someone you’ve already known for years?
“So. I guess . . . we’ll just pretend I don’t know you to get this going.”
“Fine by me,” she says patiently, and gives a little wave to a lady she chatted with at breakfast who walks by.
She’s settled back in her chair like she is perfectly happy. Like this is just another day in paradise.
I cast a glance to Nash, my eyes saying, Are you seeing this? What is wrong with this woman?
He shrugs back as if to say, What is ever right with Neena?
And for a moment, it feels like old times.
“Okay,” I say for the zillionth time. C’mon, Pip. Business.
I grab for my phone. Forget it.
I can’t possibly try to figure out how to be a detective while pretending I’m not trying to be a detective.
That’s too sleuth for a beginner like me.
“Where were you when the night of the murder happened?”
“Which one, dearie? You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“Hugh’s,” I say. “Let’s just, for the time being, assume all of my questions unless specified are about Hugh.”
“I was in my bed, same as you and everyone else. Well, minus one of us, of course.” She laughs a little to herself and takes
another sip.
My eyes go wide and shoot over to Nash again. Are you hearing her?
He takes my cue and steps closer to listen.
“And the morning he was found . . .” I say, typing into my phone.
“Oh, you know that, dearie. Where was I? Where do you know I was?”
She sounds teacherly.
“In . . . the library,” I say.
“Spot on,” she says, tapping her nose and then pointing at me proudly. “Very good. Jot that one down.”
After a few furtive looks in her direction, I begin typing into my phone, only to realize she has quietly scooted herself
over and is now hunched over, hovering over my shoulder, reading the screen.
“Now, I’m only a humble writer and no great sleuth, but I’d type a header for that one, dearie. Something like . . .”
I purse my lips together.
Pause.
And after several moments, give in and begin typing Location.
“Very nice. Very specific.” Her flowery-perfumed hand pats my shoulder, and she drops herself back in her chair.
Honestly, is someone drugging Neena? Is that a thing?
“I don’t think you ought to take those pills anymore, Neena,” I say as an aside.
“As you wish,” she says with a little carefree smile, and sips again on her pink drink.
She may go back to being an absolute wreck tomorrow morning, but better a wreck than this completely insensitive, dreamland
woman.
Moving on.
“Did you notice anything unusual the night he died? Did you go out of your room in the middle of the night? Have you ever,
for that matter”—I pause, casting another furtive glance her way—“left your room in the night for any reason?”
She takes a strong inhaling breath as though this was a deep question worth working through, then shakes her head. “No. Not
that I can recall.”
“Which, of course, would be easy to recall. Given we are talking about the last seventy-two hours.”
“No. All I did the first night was what I always do—take my sleeping pill and fall asleep to a soundtrack of Stevie Wonder.
Oh. And the night after, I stayed up wallowing in despair, of course.”
“Of course.”
“A casual self-wallow before bedtime is a must,” I say, typing down her strange account. It takes several minutes, and I tell
her at least twice that no, she cannot take a break and join the ladies for water aerobics “real quick.”
Maybe she’s sleepwalking, I realize.
Maybe she’s actually talking to herself and the pills have made her sleepwalk.
I need to see the bottle and look up a list of side effects.
That would be a relieving realization. On the one hand, I’m driven to figure this out, but on the other . . . it can’t be Neena. Eccentric, grandmotherly Neena. It just can’t.
(You’re a terrible detective, Pip. You’re supposed to be unbiased.)
“And what was your relationship with Hugh?” I say.
“I think you know that, chicky.”
“Yes, but tell me anyway. How long have you known each other?”
“A little over forty years. I was twenty-five when we first met. He was quite the catch back then, if you catch my drift.”
My brows shoot up. “You dated Hugh?”
“I was engaged to Hugh, honey. But that was a lifetime ago.”
“That wasn’t a lifetime ago, Neena. This is your life. How did I not know this?”
It’s ridiculous, but I feel a sense of betrayal here.
I mean, they knew everything about me. Everything. And to not share this?
She waves a hand. “What’s there to share? I’ve been engaged to a dozen men over the years. I barely remembered it until you told me just now.” She laughs.
But it feels . . . a little forced?
“And who broke it off?” I say into her laughter.
I can’t be sure, but I could swear there’s a millimeter pause in her laughter—a break in the cadence before she forces the
laughter to hit a natural end.
“He did,” she says at last.
Her tone is airy, but the way she reaches to the ground to set down her drink is unusual. Her face purposefully turning away.
No witty, flighty quips that are so . . . her.
“That must’ve hurt,” I say, setting my phone down.
She sees me set it down and draws up a smile. “Oh honey, what is love if there’s not risk of hurt? I’ve written 106 books
now, and if there’s one thing every good romance story needs, every single one, it’s a heart that’s willing to risk getting
hurt. Those are the stakes of love.”
She grips my hand in a moment of clarity. “And listen to me, Pip. Anyone who risks their heart for love is a winner. It doesn’t make you any less of one if it turns out the one you trusted has pulled the wool over your eyes. It just
means you gotta pick yourself up and nobly try again.” She lets go of my hand. Sits back again as the air clears. “Just in
case you didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“You know who I’m talking about.”
“I know,” I say tightly.
“I’m talking about him.”
“Yes. I caught that.”
“And The Incident.”
“Oookay,” I say.
“And The Breakthrough.”
“Alright, Neena. I got it.”
“And the celebratory life you get to lead now. Without him.”
I purse my lips. Maybe it’s best just not to answer.
“Well, I think that’s all, isn’t it?” she says brightly with a slap of her thighs. “I think I will take that quick dip. Unless
you have anything else to ask?”
“No,” I say with a shake of my head. “That’s enough to go on for now. Thank you.” You totally loopy, grandmotherly love-doctor nutcase.
She nods and shuffles herself to standing.
“I’ll see you at lunch then, dearie,” she says, giving me a little kiss on the cheek, the smell of peppermint leaving with
her. “Try not to take yourself too seriously.”
When she’s just dipping her toe into the pool’s edge, I remember something.
“Hey, Neena?”
“Hmm?” she says, turning.
“Did he hurt you? Hugh? When he broke it off?”
She looks at me through the purple haze and the bedazzled sunglasses and the heavy flowery, pepperminty perfume cloaked around
her. And in that moment, I see something dark. Something entirely out of place amid all the happiness she has clothed herself
with.
“Hurt doesn’t begin to describe it.”
And as she turns, I see a bright smile shimmy onto her face.
With mask firmly in place, she calls with a wave to the ladies in the pool and wades into the water.