Chapter 28
OCEAN
Ocean worried that Sophie’s old cottage wasn’t ready for CJ’s too-abrupt arrival.
Well, no. The truth was, even though she wasn’t sure how she felt about this whole girlfriend-across-the-courtyard thing, she wanted to make a good impression.
So she let herself in and was immediately struck by the cleanliness.
Ah. Of course, Lily-Ann had already taken care of things.
So Ocean switched to worrying about Mrs. B’s casual approach to landlady-ing.
She’d long been concerned that Mrs. B would run afoul of tenant laws, because she never even pretended to care about them.
She charged whatever she wanted, and had absolutely no boundaries.
And inviting CJ seemed like a bad idea, her own relationship aside, considering the Marigold Cottages’ history with homicides.
Why ask a murder suspect, even one whose laugh brightened Ocean’s world like cadmium yellow, to live there?
The last thing they needed, considering the secrets from six months earlier, was another reason for the police to be snooping around.
Ocean stood in Sophie’s empty living room, wondering if accenting the cottage with a few vases of fresh-cut flowers would be weird and stalkerish.
Probably. She exhaled, trying to let the blank serenity calm her.
She liked to think of her own cottage as eclectic, but she cared enough about aesthetics to admit that it was mostly chaotic.
Maybe she needed Lily-Ann to organize her life.
Or adopt her kids. Ha. Yeah, that would—
A knock sounded at the open door and when she turned, CJ said, “Well, if I knew you were included in rent, I would’ve moved in a long time ago.”
Ocean blushed. Actually blushed. “Oh! I was, um, just doing a final walk-through.”
“How does it look?”
“Good! Good. I didn’t expect you until later. I was going to bring housewarming flowers but I didn’t. Oh, god, I sound like Lily-Ann.”
CJ gazed at her face. “Well, everything looks perfect to me.”
“You stop.”
“You know what I realized about you?”
“I’ve got great arms?”
“You’re more comfortable being needed than wanted.”
“Isn’t everyone?”
“No, Ocean. Everyone isn’t.” She peered around the living room. “This is wonderful. I can’t thank you enough.”
“That’s all on Mrs. B.”
CJ gave her a lopsided smile, her wing-tipped eyes twinkling. “I mean that you’re not freaking out too much.”
“I’m not freaking out at all!”
“Well…” CJ stepped into her arms. “Just the right amount.”
Ocean smelled the apple scent of CJ’s shampoo. “You have glorious hair.”
“One of the few good things I inherited from my mother.”
“Do they, uh, do your parents know what’s going on with you?”
CJ left her arms. “They wouldn’t care.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
She stepped out the front door. “Stop apologizing and tell me which way to find Anthony.”
“Oh!” Ocean said, following her. “I think he’s…”
“Not here at the moment,” Lily-Ann called from her porch, making Ocean wonder if she’d been listening through the window.
CJ gave a little wave. “Oh! You must be Lily-Ann. I’m CJ. Mrs. B said Anthony might help me move in? There isn’t much but I’m renting the van by the hour.”
“I’ll help,” Ocean said.
“We need a man,” Lily-Ann said, then saw Ocean’s expression. “What? That’s what they’re for.”
“Well, I brought one,” CJ said. “But I want two. I’d rather not wrestle half that couch again. Pax is here.”
Ocean tilted her head. “Pax the masseuse?”
“He’s the closest thing I have to a coworker.” CJ’s cheeks pinked as she gestured toward the street. “He offered to help.”
“You have a crush on him!” Ocean said, enjoying CJ’s uncharacteristic embarrassment.
“I do not! Well, maybe I did, but only for a second. Wait till you see him.”
“I am immune to the charms of men,” Ocean loftily informed her, then gave a soft whistle when a compact, beautifully built man ambled onto the property. “Okay, yeah.”
His light eyes contrasted prettily with his unshaven face. He was wearing a tight T-shirt with the words KNEAD YOU across the chest. He looked like Michelangelo’s David, dressed in SoCal casual, with amazing sandy-brown hair. His jawline alone could launch a thousand ships.
“All that and he’s into astrology, too,” CJ whispered.
“You’re such a girl,” Ocean murmured.
Pax gave a yawning smile as he reached them. “Morning.”
“I knew this was too early for you,” CJ said. “Pax, this is my Ocean, and that’s Lily-Ann.”
Ocean said hello, trying not to parse how she’d been introduced.
“You also worked for Frank DeYoung?” Lily-Ann asked.
“Well, not on the payroll.” Pax stifled another yawn. “But he always felt so much better after a massage that his wife had me coming by four days a week.”
“Plus, once for her,” CJ added. “Because she felt left out.”
“Maybe I’m just that good.”
“Uh-huh. Anyway, when Pax heard I got kicked out, he offered to give me a hand moving. He’s sweet that way. I just thought Anthony would make it easier.”
“We’ll manage,” Ocean said, then heard a tapping from across the courtyard.
When she peered closer, she saw Hamilton at his window. He caught her eye and gestured frantically toward Mrs. B’s cottage, mouthing unintelligible words.
“Er, though apparently I’m needed…”
“We’ll get started without you,” CJ said, and invited Pax inside to show him the cottage.
Ocean stood there for a moment, unsure. She was so unsure that she didn’t even know what she was unsure about. Then Hamilton tapped more urgently, so she bustled across the courtyard toward Mrs. B’s front door. When she turned the corner, she found Detective Enible on the stoop.
“Ocean Mistral,” he greeted her.
Ocean felt her heart thump. “What are you doing here?”
“Found myself in the neighborhood, thought I’d say hello.”
“Yeah? I’ll let Mrs. B know.”
“I haven’t even knocked yet.”
“Don’t bother.” Ocean worried that she sounded too defensive so she added, “She’s busy right now.”
“How about Sophie Gilman?” The detective jerked his head toward Sophie’s former cottage. “Looks to me like she’s left town.”
Ocean remembered, belatedly, that she wasn’t supposed to talk to cops. Anthony had made that clear: Don’t explain, don’t justify, don’t argue. Don’t even respond to the most innocuous questions.
After a silence, Enible said, “Damn, Anthony trained you well. Never mind. I’ll find Sophie at her job.”
What a prick.
“She’s usually home by six,” Ocean told him, because she knew Sophie would hate the cops stopping by her office.
“Where’s home?” he asked.
“She moved in with Nicholas.”
Enible hitched up his pants in satisfaction. “Is that right? I knew the two of them were dating. Or what does my daughter call it? Talking? Hooking up?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me how I know they’re dating, Ms. Mistral?”
“I know how you know.”
“That’s right, they were together at the Hope Ranch party where Frank DeYoung died.”
“When he fell down the stairs,” Ocean said.
“His widow thinks Sophie and Nicholas’s friend pushed her.”
Ocean managed not to glance toward CJ’s new cottage. “People believe all kinds of things.”
“Never have truer words been spoken.” Enible scratched his nose. “Still, I’m obliged to inquire. The widow wonders why, if the friend planned to kill Frank DeYoung at the party, did she invite two of her friends along? What were they doing there?”
“It’s almost as if the friend didn’t plan to kill anyone,” Ocean said.
“As a thought experiment, though, if you’ll indulge the—”
“CJ’s not their friend!” Mrs. B said, opening the screen door behind him. “She’s mine.”
The detective smiled in what looked like genuine pleasure. “Mrs. Bakofsky, how good to—”
“You don’t have to talk to him,” Ocean cut in. “He arrested you for no reason.”
“Everyone makes mistakes, dear.” Mrs. B stepped out of her cottage, her pink silk caftan fluttering.
“I met CJ at the YMCA. She helps with my bra straps. I’m not as flexible as I used to be, and clasps are fiddly.
We’ve known each for, oh, a year or two now?
Time flies at my age. Which is ironic because I only shuffle. What was I saying?”
“You’ve known CJ Moore for two years.”
“Approximately! Write that down! Approximately. I’m only guessing.” She sniffed at him. “We talked once or twice a week. She drove me home a handful of times and I gave her coffee and advice. I’m a bit of a yenta.”
“I don’t know what that is,” the detective said.
“A busybody,” Ocean murmured.
“Also a matchmaker!” Mrs. B peered at Enible. “Speaking of which, are you married? You look married, but you don’t act married.”
“Uh,” the detective said.
“Oh! There’s your ring. Your wife’s not dead, is she?
No? You’re too young to be a widow. Or do I mean a widower?
Do we still say widower? Language keeps changing, doesn’t it?
That’s one thing I love about it. I’ve been speaking English my whole life and there’s still so much to learn.
I suppose that’s true of culture. What’s that phrase you use, Ocean?
‘Culture is upwind of language’? That’s not it! It’s close, though—”
As she continued to babble, Ocean felt a sort of glee bubbling in her chest. Of course, Mrs. B couldn’t not speak to the cops. She couldn’t not speak to anyone. But damn could she bury the detective in an absolute avalanche of charming bullshit.
Enible caught on a minute later, when Mrs. B paused for a breath. “Well, that clears it right up,” he said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go knock on Nicholas’s door.”
He’d barely vanished around the corner before Pax appeared from the courtyard, looking gorgeously mussed from moving furniture.
Ocean cringed at the close call: if the detective had met another one of the DeYoungs’ party guests at Marigold Cottages, he’d suspect them all of pushing the old man down the stairs.
She needed to keep Pax away from the cop, so she grabbed his arm and dragged him inside Mrs. B’s cottage, saying, “Let me get you the mailbox key.”
“Oh, sure.”
When she was sure the detective was gone, she released him. “Sorry about that.”
Pax gave an inquisitive smile. “You didn’t want the cop to see me?”
“CJ’s got enough problems, she doesn’t need the police investigation to zoom in on her new home.”
“Yeah, she can’t catch a break. First losing Frank, then losing her room. We aren’t close, but it looked like she needed a friend.” He shrugged one muscular shoulder. “It’s like Krishnamurti said, ‘The worst of times is always better with a friend.’”
Ocean was 90 percent sure that was a Winnie-the-Pooh quote, but she said, “Very wise.”
“So is the cop here to arrest her?”
“Not if we can help it,” Ocean said, then texted the Murder Collective.