A Fatal Romance. June Shaw

have snapped at you. I’m sorry,” she said.

      I leaned over and kissed her forehead like Mom used to do to let us know anytime we were forgiven. “To make amends, can I see what you’re working on?”

      She considered a minute, then led the way through her picture-book house. The lingering fragrance from vanilla triple-scented candles made me want yellow cake. The spacious den held large windows and pale neutral shades, its main color from Mexican floor tile and Eve’s muted-tone abstracts, which I determined she painted when she was between dating or marriage.

      She kept most of her home with a colorless feel like a blank canvas, letting her imagination soar. Pulling a key from the second drawer of an end table beside the white marshmallow-leather sofa, she unlocked a door off the den.

      Shell-shocked. Her studio made me feel that way even more so than usual. While the rest of her house gave off a bland feel, this room was infused with color, especially on a huge canvas on an easel in the center of the room. Splashes of color and bright dots of varying sizes filled almost every inch of the canvas.

      “Intriguing,” I said. “Who does it represent?”

      “Dave Price. That man is terrific.”

      “I can tell. Y’all must have an explosive relationship.”

      “I only know him casually. Of course I’m planning to change that.” Her grin widened. “This is how I’m expecting our relationship to become.”

      “Impressive.”

      The other dozen or so paintings on easels and standing on the floor represented men she’d dated or married. Some wore drab shades. A couple of canvases showed small vases. Others held crudely-drawn flowers or apples. She wasn’t a proficient artist, but while our business grew, this gave her something to do with extra time besides line dancing once a week and working out at the gym. She didn’t get to see her daughter in Houston often enough. A sex therapist would enjoy analyzing what she did in here.

      “Thanks for letting me see your latest work. Sorry about the funeral ruckus.”

      “You didn’t cause it.” The fair skin between her eyes creased. “I’d like to know what happened after we left the church.”

      I’d prefer to know what really happened to the dead man before we went there. “Maybe you’ll find out. See you later.” I locked the stained-glass front door on my way out.

      Ambling alongside her taupe stucco house, I paused in back to admire the fountain burbling on her patio. Inside it, a stone angel poured bleach-scented water. Again, I wished the fountain held live fish instead of the almost real-looking plastic gold ones. Angling through the little grass path between the yards behind her house, I passed a dog-eared cedar fence on the right and white solid vinyl fence panels on the left. Then I stepped across the next street, which was mine. Yards and cars here were less fancy than on hers. A couple of clunkers sat in circular drives. Even the air smelled less pure.

      “Your petunias still look good,” I told Miss Hawthorne, kneeling beside the purple blossoms lining the concrete path to her front stoop.

      “Thank you. Oh, Sunny, look. The girdle you sold me still works great. Two years old and still holding me in.” She struggled up to her feet. Miss Hawthorne was probably older than my mother and didn’t like help. She’d insisted on a girdle, not that newer stuff she said was smaller than her gloves, and bought it from me while I still worked at Fancy Ladies, our town’s only upscale dress shop. I’d needed to quit that job since I had developed excruciating heel spurs that wouldn’t get better until I stopped standing all day every day, and surgery wouldn’t correct them.

      The top of Miss Hawthorne’s plump face hid beneath the wide floppy brim of her straw hat, which didn’t hide her pleasant smile. Dirt tumbled off the knees of her slacks. The girdle pushed her stomach up and made the thick roll above her waist more pronounced through her knit shirt. I’d learned to notice details while I fitted ladies with undergarments and determined she had gained fifteen pounds since I sold her that girdle.

      “You look good, Miss Hawthorne. But next time you’re at Fancy Ladies, you might check out the newer styles. You could find a control panty or shaper that’s more comfortable.”

      “Oh no, hon, this works just fine.”

      “Good. I’ll see you later.” I strolled off, pleased to know her smile finally returned after her misery because a relative’s pet she had been keeping escaped from her fenced backyard.

      A couple of houses to the left, I reached mine, a gray brick with a darker gray stucco entrance. I entered, experiencing the same stir of unpleasant emotions as every other time I returned from Eve’s. My place was pleasant, yet now felt like it held too much clutter, even if there wasn’t much extra. The house even smelled dull. I plugged in a vanilla-scented air freshener.

      Standing beneath the foyer light, I yanked my jacket pocket wide open. Course grayish bits of a man lay inside. I strode to my kitchen trashcan and stepped on the pedal to pop it open, ready to turn my pocket inside out.

      No, that wouldn’t be right. I let the can’s top close. Where else might I put these powdery flakes? I couldn’t dump them in my yard or even think of flushing them.

      This was part of a person that needed to be treated with respect. I hung the jacket in the foyer, grabbed a phonebook, and looked up a number, relieved to find the person listed. I punched in numerals and listened to the phone ring. A click sounded.

      “Snelling residence,” a woman said. “We can’t get to the phone now, but we will return your call as soon as we’re home if you leave your number.” Daria Snelling sounded much more pleasant on the machine than she had in church.

      I hitched up my chin and tried to sound cheerful. “Hello, Mrs. Snelling. This is the tall redhead who blurted a song this morning at St. Gertrude’s. I’m sorry I sang and really sorry about your husband.” I cleared my throat. “I called to tell you I have something of his. I’m sure it’s something you’ll want.” I gave my number in case she didn’t have caller I.D. and hung up.

      My stomach rumbled, reminding me of why I’d stopped at Eve’s in the first place. I considered eating leftover red beans and sausage, but instead yanked rice from the fridge, heated a pile of it in a bowl, and squirted my initials over it with ketchup. I munched on this entrée with a chunk of lettuce topped with a few raisins, fat-free ranch dressing, and crunchy chow mein noodles.

      In my bedroom, I peeled off church clothes and struggled to snap my jeans, then yanked on a purple T-shirt with gold letters in front that said TWIN SISTERS. Small letters on its back said Remodeling & Repairs.

      I slipped into my backyard, where flats of flowers waited. Sunshine and temperatures in the mid-sixties made the spring afternoon appealing. A cool breeze pushed off earlier mugginess that reminded us soon south Louisiana would treat us all to steam baths.

      Digging up scraggly plants, I tossed them aside, noting sirens in the distance. A harsh memory trying to erupt froze me in place. I fought the remembrance from my youth and forced it away.

      I stabbed soil with my shovel, knowing something was definitely not right with Daria Snelling. Years of working in close contact with women at Fancy Ladies let me learn much more than I wanted to about their private lives so that now my initial instincts were normally correct. Dragging topsoil to the flowerbeds, I mentally weighed the probability of what police decided happened to Zane Snelling and shook my head. Why had he tripped and slid into the deep water in their backyard near the seating area Eve and I recently completed?

      Uneasy about his drowning, I added weed preventer to my beds and topped the mounds with cypress mulch. Next came tall coneflowers as a nice backdrop. I set daylilies in front and filled in the closest section with coreopsis.

      When the sun was dipping behind rooftops, my riot of color pleased me. I watered everything and kicked off my dirty shoes near the backdoor. Walking into the kitchen, I was ready to develop a bid for Anna Tabor’s window that would add to our other pending jobs.