“She’s not here to pick cherries,” I said. “Ivy and Carl were arrested.”
“Finally!” she said, surprising both Opal and me.
For a moment, I thought Opal might pound my grandmother’s chest like she had mine, but she didn’t. Instead, she turned and stormed off.
“Hey, don’t just leave.”
Without turning around, she lifted one hand and gave me the finger. It stung. Not being flipped off, but what it probablymeant. Losing her friendship, I guess. She was the closest thing to a friend I had in Michigan. Or maybe anywhere.
I mean, Vinnie wasn’t really talking to me. Sometimes I got calls from guys who wanted to go bar-hopping or come over and have sex. But once they found out I was in Michigan, well, I didn’t hear from them again. As though whatever purpose I’d served in their lives had ended.
But Opal… Well, yes, she was snarky and obnoxious and had an annoying habit of disagreeing with me, and all that. On the other hand, she showed up. She was there.
And now she wasn’t. I was pretty sure she’d never talk to me again. Unexpectedly, that mattered.
“Henry,” Nana Cole called out. “Get back to work.”
About an hour later, a friend of Jasper’s came by with a one-man shaker. You have seriously never seen anything like this. It’s kind of like a forklift, except instead of a lift it has an upside-down canvas umbrella attached to the front. You drive it up to a cherry tree, it wraps the canvas umbrella around the tree, and then shakes all the cherries off. Everything was going to be fine. We’d done it. We’d saved the farm—or whatever.
“So,can I have the money you promised me?” I asked Nana Cole that evening.
“Well, no.”
“What do you mean no? You wanted me to ask a few questions, which I did, a long time ago. And now people have been arrested for your preacher’s murder. I think you owe me.”
“Who killed him? Was it Ivy or Carl?”
“They’ve both been arrested, so I’d guess they’re in it together.”
“Really? Your friend Amber seemed to think Carl is innocent.”
“Her name is Opal. And just because she thinks that doesn’t mean it’s true. I think you need to pay me.”
“And just because you think that doesn’t mean I’m going to.”
And then, to really spite me, she announced her intention to sit down and watchSeventh Heaven. That was a hard no for me, so I went upstairs. Before I did though, I snagged the most recent copy of theEagleso I could look for a car and get the heck out of there. Of course, that was hopeless. I now had just a little more than five thousand—if Nana ever gave me the money she owed me. That wouldn’t buy me much.
My phone rang. I flipped it open. It was Edward.
“Hey,” I said in what I hoped was a sultry voice.
“Hey. I just got back from my trip. I mean, I got back a couple days ago, but I had to work. Did you have a nice holiday?”
I wanted to say I’d solved a murder but couldn’t figure out if that was sexy or not. Not to mention I didn’t actually know who did it, yet. All I knew was who’d been arrested, which didn’t sound like me solving anything.
“Yeah, I did have a nice holiday. We watched the fireworks.”
This was not a big deal since we could see them from the front porch.
“I thought about you a lot while I was gone.”
“I thought about you, too.” I mean, it’s what I was supposed to say, right? And I did think about him. In between thinking about a whole lot of other things.
“I know it’s late notice, but if you wanted to come over for a glass of wine.”
Oh my God! This was a booty call. Perfect! My plan was to buy a car and drive away, so if all he wanted was to have sex, well, great! I didn’t have to feel guilty that he might want to get all romantic and live happily ever after and all that.
I ran into the bathroom to take a shower, thinking,On the other hand, maybe we will live happily ever after.Which led to ten minutes ofOh my God, oh my God. I’m going to marry a doctor.
