Arline ended up at the Chickadee with a pack of twenties splattered in red dye and a jar of petroleum jelly after a bank robbery gone wrong, and that’s all she would say on the subject.
Daisy painted Cordelia’s toes a bright coral pink, which made Cordelia squirm every time she looked at her feet. It felt like too much fuss. But fussing was what Daisy did best. Cordelia found it easier if she just went along with it.
After painting her own toes, Daisy put the cap back on the polish. “I think Miss Cordelia and I should go into town today.”
Belinda Sue set her sunglasses atop her victory rolls and pierced Daisy with a hard stare. “We said we would wait a week. It’s been four days.”
Daisy fidgeted in her beach chair, restless enough to worry the spots off a ladybug. “I know what we said, but I’m getting antsy out here, and it’ll look strange if Miss Cordelia doesn’t go into town at least once. We don’t want people thinking she’s unfriendly or that these aren’t normal conditions.”
“Fair point.” Belinda Sue put her sunglasses back on and relaxed against her beach recliner. “Grab me some strawberries while you’re out. I’ve got a hankering.”
Daisy clapped her hands together. “Sure thing.” Not wanting to give Belinda Sue a free second to change her mind, Daisy grabbed Cordelia’s hand and dragged her to her apartment. “Go on and get changed. I’ll meet you by your car.”
“Shouldn’t we take your car since the police might be looking for mine?” Cordelia asked.
“I don’t drive. Haven’t in years.” Daisy waved a hand in front of her face, swishing away invisible gnats. “And don’t worry too much about your car; the church doesn’t have cameras.”
“How do you know?”
Daisy grinned.
Cordelia’s lips pinched like she was sucking on a lemon a week past its prime. “Forget I asked.”
Wanting to make a good impression on the town that’d thrown her away before she cut her first tooth, Cordelia wore her most professional gray pantsuit and clipped her hair back with a no-nonsense barrette. Of course, all that professionalism was undone by Daisy’s flamingo-print halter dress and matching flamingo earrings that skimmed her bony shoulders.
She gave Cordelia a wide grin, her ruby-red lips shimmering in the sunlight. “Let’s light a shuck, daylight’s wasting.”
As they took the dirt road, kicking up dust on their way, Cordelia pointed to a small collection of pickup trucks about halfway to the gas station—in the general area where she thought she’d seen headlights the night they moved the pastor’s body.
“What’s going on over there?” she asked.
Daisy glared at the group of trucks. “Those are the developers trying to run us off our land, same as they did to Belinda Sue’s daddy. Dick Abernathy retired and moved to Houston, but he left the business to his son, Corbin, who says he’s more honest in his dealings than Dick, but I can see them horns holding up his halo.”
“If he can just take land like that, what’s stopping him from doing to us what he did to Belinda Sue’s daddy?” Cordelia asked.
Daisy lifted a shoulder. “Miss Penelope’s trust was ironclad. Everyone knows it. And I’d never say this to Belinda Sue, but her daddy couldn’t ride and chew at the same time, if you know what I mean. Still. He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”
“What happened?”
“It was ugly business.” Daisy glowered, and the expression looked about as natural on her as a nun’s habit. “Everyone in townthought he lost his land on account of being behind on his taxes, and Dick snapped it up for a song.”
“I’m guessing he wasn’t behind on taxes?”
“He might’ve been. He swore up and down he wasn’t, but he wasn’t the best bookkeeper. Though it was also common knowledge that Dick Abernathy had some kind of blackmail over the county tax collector, so, like I said, ugly business.”
“Why is he just hanging around out there?” A sense of unease prickled the back of Cordelia’s neck. Truth be told, that feeling had been following her ever since they moved the pastor’s body into the church. “Is he trying to intimidate y’all?”
“Could be.” Daisy held her arm out the window and her paper-thin skin flapped on the wind. “He done bought up a bunch of empty land around the Chickadee, but Miss Penelope owned fifty acres smack-dab in the middle of the fancy golf course he planned on building. He can’t get his hands on the one piece of land he needs, and he’s fit to be tied.”
The terms of Great-Aunt Penelope’s trust finally made sense to Cordelia, and a satisfied smile touched her lips. “I’ll bet she loved dangling that over him.”
Daisy laughed. “She sure did. And the thing was, she could’ve bought up ten motels for what Corbin offered and moved the Chickadee anywhere else. She never said so out loud, but we all knew she did it for Belinda Sue, for her daddy, and what they lost because of the Abernathys.”
The more Cordelia learned about her Great-Aunt Penelope, the more she liked and respected who she’d been. Even though she said a cathouse was no place to raise a child, Cordelia wondered just how different her life might’ve been if she’d been raised around a woman who was as generous as a spring harvest in peat moss. But every day she spent with Daisy, Belinda Sue, and Arline, she felt like she was getting pieces of her all the same.
They pulled into town and parked across from the drugstore. Main Street still looked the same. Bank, drugstore, diner. The old men who used to sit in front of the H-E-B market had been replaced by newer versions of old men, but they wore the same loose slacks, button-down plaid shirts, and aviator sunglasses. They got to their feet and tipped their hats when they saw Daisy coming up the walk, swinging her hips in her halter dress like she’d been born to draw men like flowers attracted bees.
“Miss Daisy, you’re looking mighty fine today.” A man with a silver comb-over and a sly grin clutched his hat in his hands. “Might have to pay a visit to the Chickadee this week.”
