When I woke at eight the next morning feeling a bit shaky but almost ready to take on the world, I casually reached over with my left arm to find that Mia had gone. I did a snappy visual check. Yep, she was not there. Her two huge straw bags were on the floor beside the bed. How had she got them from the back of my car into the room without waking me? Some of the contents of one of the sacks had spilled out upon the floor. Lots of what my grandmother would have called young lady’s unmentionables, but no Mia. I remembered the written threat and my meeting with Sammy. I checked in the bathroom. How careful can you check in a room measuring five feet by four feet? No note—nothing. I washed quickly and pulled on my shorts and flip-flops and made my way outside. The garage door was open and the Jag had been backed out into the driveway. I checked and found the car locked up again. Mia’s car was parked in behind it and almost hanging out into the street. How had I slept through all this? I was about ready to turn back to my room and phone the Mounties when I heard a loud, “Hey Joey!”
And there she was—running at a very fast clip towards me—too fast. At the last second, she sprang at me like a frenzied lion attacking a confused Tarzan. Thank God that she was only slightly more than five feet tall and a hundred pounds wearing dumbbells. And, that I was almost semi ready—almost. Mia was oblivious of the risk. She smacked into me like a human cannonball and planted a sloppy wet kiss on my not so ready for kissing lips. At the same time, she wrapped her lithe sweat soak legs around my waist.
“Christ on a crutch Mia,” I muttered as I staggered uncertainly in an attempt to stay upright. “It’s a damn good thing you’re only just bigger than a dwarf. You could have killed both of us.”
“What’s this dwarf crap?” Mia demanded still clinging to me like a starving koala bear on a fresh eucalyptus tree.
“You’re short Mia—short—vertically challenged. And it’s a damn good thing too cause if you had been even half the size of a normal person, I’d be dead.”
“I’ll have you know Mister Joseph Holiday that I’m just over five foot two and a half inches and weigh a hundred and seven pounds, and I don’t seem to recall too many complaints in bed last night when you told me to roll over and …
“Okay, Mia okay. I apologize. I was mistaken—wrong—very wrong. How could I think such a thing? Why, you are a veritable giant among women—an Amazon of incredible proportions and a paragon of …”
“Joe? Joe?”
“Yes Mia.”
“Shut up! You really are messed up sometimes.”
“I’m sorry. Where have you been, and why didn’t you wake me up? I’ve been worried.”
“You were sleeping so peacefully,” she said sweetly as she disengaged her legs and slipped lightly to the ground, “that I didn’t want to wake you. Tomorrow, you can go for a run with me. Okay?”
“Oh yeah,” I replied looking down at the fresh residue of sweat all over the front of me. “I’ll most definitely look forward to that particular form of early morning torture. How far did you run?”
“About five or six miles—and now I need to grab a shower and then we’ll get going. You said last night that you had a plan. And I want you to meet my mom. How about filling it in for me over breakfast?”
“I can do that.”
“Oh, and Phyllis slipped a note under our door just after six this morning. She wondered if we could give her a lift to the airport later. She’s on stand-bye. Her sister took a bad turn during the night.”
Our door—that had a nice ring to it.
“I can do that too.”
I showed her where the shower was in the bigger bathroom across the hall and, with my hand placed softly on her taut backside, offered to help her. The effort was a valiant one, but the shower stall was just too small for the both of us. I left Mia soaping herself and happily singing off key. Unfortunately, she only knew the words of the first line of a song I didn’t recognize, so after she had repeated the words—all eight of them—about sixteen times, I quietly slipped outside. I went around to the front door to tell Mrs. Reilly that we would be available to take her to the airport whenever. Phyllis told me that she had just been given a confirmation on a flight that wasn’t due to take off for another three and a half hours, but because of airport security, she was supposed to be there at least two hours early. I told her we could be ready to leave in about forty minutes.
Just before I turned away to rush back and tell Mia that we had to get a move on, Phyllis Reilly grabbed my arm and pulled me closer to her. “You know that girl is damaged goods Joseph?”
“What do you mean?” I replied almost afraid to hear what I guessed Mrs. Reilly was about to tell me.
“She has had a bad life, and the bad parts started when she was just a child. It will be quite difficult for her to keep her act together for long. You have to be patient with her and be good to her Joseph. You may be the only man who ever will be.” And then, Phyllis Reilly let go of my arm and turned to go back into her house. “I’ll be praying for you two,” she said as she closed the door.
I stood quietly for a second or two. Was I ever wrong! My landlady was no ditz. She was a very perceptive woman. I ran around to the back of the house to tell Mia we had to be ready to leave in a few minutes.
Mia totally surprised me. She, unlike me, was ready to go. She had on her pale blue flip-flops, short-short faded cut-offs, and her diamond navel stickpin. I had actually studied that little decorative item. It wasn’t a single diamond, but rather a serious number of small diamonds embedded in a gold butterfly. To top that off she had on a pink T-shirt cut off about five inches above the butterfly. I wondered if Phyllis Reilly would break out in a chorus of Onward Christian Soldiers when she saw Mia’s outfit of the day.
“Might get cold Mia,” I mumbled trying not to offend. “Why don’t you wear that fetching white sweatshirt I bought for you at The Surf and Sand souvenir shop a few nights ago?”
“It’s going to be a beautiful day. Why would I do that? I mean I’ll take it with me if you want, but I don’t need to wear it.”
“Let the chips fall where they may,” I muttered anxiously as I dressed in a hurry.
In fact, Mrs. Reilly told Mia that she looked lovely on this beautiful spring Florida day. “Fetching” was her actual word. She also told my shower soprano that, in her day, she had been very much like Mia. That caused me to do a double take. My landlady then gave me a quick once over and said nothing. Sometimes, you just can’t win.
After we had made certain that Mrs. Reilly was in good hands at the St. Pete-Clearwater Airport, we headed off to have brunch. Our first intention to meet with Mia’s mother in the early afternoon had run into a bit of a snag. The former Mrs. Doulton, now Mrs. Eliza Bullock, was getting her hair done at the Crescendo Health and Beauty Spa. Mia informed me that she would go there too—just after she made her first million. Crescendo was the—indulge yourself location because you can afford it—for the rich and famous. From the tip of your toes to the top of your head—Crescendo did it all.
Mia thought that letting her Mom meet me was necessary. Maybe, she wanted to show off the new boyfriend—me. I admit that I was more interested in seeing her stepdad and brother because of the red flags they raised in my mind. Mia said if we told Ted, her stepfather that we were coming, he would probably be somewhere else. We discussed what we were going to try to accomplish with this short visit. Not much. Just let me see who they were and how they acted. We agreed that if her stepfather or her stepbrother, Terry, were at home, we would go easy on the questions about Vickie and her last few days at home. Mia’s comment that both men really had little interest in any additional inquiry into the murder begged the question; why?