Well Read, Then Dead(15)

            My stomach pitched like a twelve-foot sailboat on a stormy sea and I felt my knees buckle. Kind, sweet Delia Batson was pummeled and suffocated. And for what? To steal the family silver? If there even was family silver. Cady caught me as I started to fold and guided me to the passenger seat of his car. He reached into an ice chest on the rear floor and offered me a bottle of coolish water. I accepted gratefully.

            I took a long drink then heaved a deep sigh. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

            Cady agreed. “I always wanted to be a newsman. Freedom of the press. Keep the world informed. But when the story hits this close to home . . .”

            He shook his head. There was nothing left to say.

            We shared the silence for a while and then he asked, “What about Augusta? She and Delia always seemed a pair of harmonizing opposites. Filling in each other’s gaps, as it were. How will Augusta manage?”

            Mourn the dead; help the living, I thought. Always a compelling challenge.

            “We’ll comfort her. All of her friends will get together and form a support group.”

            Cady shook his head. “You know how independent she is. Augusta would never take to having anyone interfere with the way she lives her life.”

            “Believe me, she’ll never know,” I boasted with more confidence than I felt. It wouldn’t be easy to fool Augusta, but I knew it would be necessary to keep her on track.

            Cady looked at his watch. “Listen, I hate to leave you alone out here . . .”

            “I know. You have to hit the keyboard. Get going. If anyone is going to write this story, I’m glad it’s you. Delia knew you liked her. She once whispered to Bridgy that she thought you had the ways of an old-fashioned gentleman. She meant it as quite the compliment.”

            Cady doffed an imaginary hat then furled and flourished it through the air with the deep bow of a seventeenth-century courtier.

            “Thank you, m’lady.”

            In spite of the horror of the day, he brought a smile to my lips. That was Cady’s special gift.

            “Not quite that old-fashioned. I think she was aiming a few centuries closer in time.”

            “I’ll stop by the Read ’Em and Eat after work. See you there?”

            I nodded. “By the time Ryan and his crony leave, Augusta will probably be tired and pushing me out the door to follow along behind them, but I think I should offer to stay with her, at least for a while. There’s so much to do.”

            Cady climbed into his car and drove off. He waved when he reached the corner and then disappeared around it, leaving me standing alone on Augusta’s lawn. I looked up and down the street, which migrated east toward the placid water of Estero Bay. Like most residential streets in Fort Myers Beach, the lawns were neat and the houses summery. The porches tended to have a pastel Adirondack chair or two, backrests fitted with oversized pillows decorated with a seashell or palm tree motif. Typical cozy Florida, the colors were muted and sandy soft. As a Brooklyn girl, I still found it hard to believe that life could be so comfortably low-key. Leisurely and serene . . . until now.

            I took another sip of water, tightened the cap on the bottle and decided to sit on Augusta’s front steps. Her porch swing was right outside the living room window, but it wasn’t worth the comfort of a cushiony seat to risk taking guff from Frank Anthony, who’d surely accuse me of listening in where I wasn’t wanted. I’d sit on the creaky wooden steps until long after my butt fell asleep before I’d give him anything to say.

            I kept myself occupied by composing a to-do list and was on number three—help the choirmaster pick out appropriate hymns—when Augusta got tired of speaking softly.