Page 73 of Hello, Summer
“I figured your grandmother wouldn’t miss a few flowers from her garden, now that she’s out at the beach. She usually sends Winnie down with a bunch every week.”
“I know she’d love knowing your mother is enjoying them,” Conley said, following him into the kitchen. “Now what can I do to help? Did I mention I’m starving?”
“You can help me carry in the salad. Everything’s ready. Nothing fancy over here at Chez Kelly. Just a green salad and spaghetti and meatballs.”
He went to the stove and lifted the lid of a huge saucepan, and the smell of oregano, garlic, and tomatoes filled the kitchen.
“Smells divine,” she said, picking up the plates he’d already filled with tossed salad.
An hour later, she was washing dishes in the kitchen while Miss June sat in a chair in the living room, petting Opie and feeding him treats.
“Where’d you learn to make red sauce like that?” she asked her host, who was filling plastic quart containers with the leftover spaghetti.
“I had a friend in pharmacy school. He was from a big Italian family in New Jersey. We’d have these communal study groups on Sunday nights, and he’d always bring what he called hisnonna’s Sunday gravy.”
“If you ever get tired of running a pharmacy, you could probably open a restaurant with a recipe like that,” she said.
“Not a chance,” Skelly said, putting the last container in the refrigerator. “I don’t get a chance to cook that often, but when I do, it’s strictly for relaxation. I make this spaghetti all the time. It’s one of Mom’s favorites, and it’s easy for her aides to warm up for lunch and dinner. She’s fine with eating the same thing every day, because she never remembers she had it the day before and the day before that.”
“She seems pretty alert and happy today,” Conley said. She hesitated. “I was going to ask—do you think she’d be up for a Sunday drive out in the country?”
“You mentioned that in your text. I know you, Sarah Conley Hawkins. What’s up? It’s got something to do with Symmes Robinette, right?”
“Guilty,” Conley said. “I’ve been poking around, looking at Robinette’s most recent campaign finance statements. In addition to the house on Sugar Key, I found the address for what I think must be Oak Springs Farm. Looks like a pretty rural part of Bronson County.”
“Why is this important to your story?”
“I looked up the property on the Bronson County tax assessor’s website, and I couldn’t believe what I found. Symmes deeded the farmhouse and eight hundred acres of land back to Toddie.”
“So?”
“He did it a week before he died, Skelly. He just handed his ex-wife, whom he divorced thirty-four years ago, a gift worth two million.”
“What do you hope to accomplish by driving out to that farm?”
“It’s a beautiful day for a drive in the country,” Conley said, trying to look and sound innocent. “Fresh air, beautiful scenery. Your mom can sit in the back seat and hug Opie, and I’ll even let you drive!”
“And you can sit up front with me and try to figure out something nefarious about the death of a politician,” he said, shaking his head.
“Exactly!”
“Where are we going?” Miss June asked, looking out the window from the back seat of the Subaru.
“Remember, Mama? We’re going for a Sunday drive,” Skelly said.
“Wonderful!” It was the third time she’d asked the question since they’d left the neighborhood, and they’d barely cleared the Silver Bay city limits.
“I saw a photo on the county website of the farmhouse Symmes deeded back to Toddie,” she told Skelly. “It’s two stories, with big, wide porches. Looks like something out of a magazine spread. Quite a difference from the photo I saw of the house she got in the divorce settlement.”
“How so?” he asked.
“I think she must have been living in the caretaker’s cottage or something. Not a shack or anything. The property card said it was fifteen hundred square feet. But it was modest compared to the big house. The reason I’m so puzzled is, why give her that big house—and all that land—now? They’ve been divorced all this time.”
“Maybe Robinette was feeling guilty. Seems to me that he got the gold mine and she got the shaft when they split up in the eighties.”
“Maybe,” Conley said, sounding dubious. “I looked up his finance records from his last campaign. He was rolling in the dough. He had six million in cash and stocks, plus the Sugar Key house, plus a town house in Georgetown. And that land and house he gave to Toddie.”
“I had no idea being a congressman was so lucrative,” Skelly said. “I’m in the wrong racket, owning a little country pharmacy.”
