Ladies' Night by Andrews, Kay (popular books of all time .TXT) 📕

at Nelson over the rim of his glasses. “I understand you had some kind of verbal altercation recently with your daughter-in-law?”

“Altercation’s a big word for what we had,” Nelson replied calmly.

“Your daughter-in-law is saying that you did use strong language in your conversation with her. In fact, she says you actually threatened her. Did your grandson hear you making threats against his mother, hear you using strong language?”

“I reckon he did,” Nelson said, his chin dropping. “I’m ashamed of that, Judge. Ashamed I let her get me riled up like that. And I’m here to promise, I won’t let her get my goat again. No sir.”

Betsy Entwhistle cleared her voice. “Judge? If I may?”

Stackpole gave her a curt nod.

“I’d just like to point out that Mrs. Keeler is not charging that Nelson Keeler has ever neglected or in any way harmed his grandson. Because he hasn’t, and he wouldn’t. And if you’ve read Dr. Shank’s report, you can see that Mrs. Keeler’s assertion that Nelson is suffering from dementia or the onset of Alzheimer’s disease is totally untrue.”

Betsy took a deep breath. “Dr. Shank is waiting on the rest of the test results, but she believes Mr. Keeler’s occasional, er, bellicosity, could be simply the result of low blood sugar. In fact, she’s suggested that Nelson Keeler might be suffering from diabetes, which could be responsible for all these symptoms Mrs. Keeler seems to want to believe are Alzheimer’s.”

The judge glanced over at Nelson Keeler and considered the old man sitting in the armchair across from him.

Nelson’s thinning gray hair was neatly trimmed and combed. He wore a pair of navy dress pants, a white dress shirt that he hadn’t donned since his late wife’s funeral, and a pair of well-polished black lace-up dress shoes.

“I’m not senile,” Nelson volunteered. “There is nothing in the world wrong with me, except maybe a little sugar diabetes, and I told the doctor I’d get that checked out and lay off the Pop-Tarts.”

“You do that,” Stackpole said finally. He closed the file folder. “I’m going to tell Mrs. Keeler and her lawyer that for now, I agree with your Dr. Shank. It appears to me that you have all your mental faculties and that you pose no threat at all to your grandson.”

“Good!” Nelson exclaimed. He pulled himself to a standing position and extended a hand to the judge, who took it, somewhat reluctantly.

“Judge,” Betsy said hurriedly. “This is the second time in as many weeks that Mrs. Keeler and her attorney have launched one of these baseless attacks on my client and his father. I hope this will reinforce our argument that it is not in Bo’s best interest for you to allow his mother to move her son out of state and away from his father’s care.”

“You’ve made your point, Ms. Entwhistle,” Stackpole said. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

*   *   *

Camryn Nobles was sitting at their regular corner table at the Sandbox, with Rochelle seated right across from her, their heads nearly touching, deep in conversation.

Grace dropped down into a chair beside her mother. “I’m starved,” she announced. “What’s the lunch special?”

“Shrimp burger, tuna melt, gazpacho,” Rochelle said.

“Gazpacho?” Grace raised one eyebrow askance.

“My produce supplier gave me a whole bushel of tomatoes with bad spots, for next to nothing,” Rochelle said. “Do you have something against gazpacho?”

“I love gazpacho,” Camryn said. “Unless it’s got green peppers, which don’t agree with me.”

“This recipe is straight off Grace’s Web site,” Rochelle said. “No green peppers. Cucumbers, garlic, cilantro…”

“You read my blog?”

“When it’s interesting, which I occasionally find it is,” Rochelle said.

“You bought cilantro?” Grace’s second interruption was a clear annoyance to her mother.

“Yes,” Rochelle said. “And I peeled the cucumbers, just as your recipe specified, for your information. With, I might add, a garnish of diced avocado and shrimp. Now, is there anything else?”

“No,” Grace said, somewhat meekly.

“Would you like a bowl of gazpacho?”

“Yes, please,” Grace and Camryn said in unison.

When they’d spooned up the last traces of cold soup and drained their iced tea glasses, Grace and Camryn sat back in their chairs.

“That was pretty damned good,” Camryn said with a sigh.

“Better than my original recipe,” Grace admitted. “But she’ll never tell me how she changed it.”

“Mothers,” Camryn said, in unspoken agreement.

“Yeah,” Grace said. “Now. What kind of dirt did you dig up on Stackpole?”

Camryn reached for her Yves St. Laurent tote bag and extracted a sheaf of computer printouts.

“Judge Cedric N. Stackpole Jr.” she said, with a flourish, “is in debt up to his pointy little ears.”

Grace rubbed her hands together gleefully. “Oooh. Goody. Do tell.”

“This is a list of bank-foreclosed properties I pulled from the county’s Web site,” Camryn said, tapping a fingernail on the first sheet of paper on the stack. She ran her finger down the columns of tiny print and then jabbed one line, highlighted with a yellow marker.

“See here? 1454 Altadora Way, unit C. Siesta Key.” Her finger trailed down the page until it stopped at another yellow-highlighted line of print. “1454 Altadora Way, unit B.” Grace’s eyes skipped down to the next line, which she read aloud.

“1463 Altadora Circle, unit A. But the mortgage holder is listed as Solomon Holdings,” Grace said, squinting at the fine print.

“Solomon, as in, wise King Solomon, biblical judge,” Camryn said, deadpan. “I looked it up. C. N. Stackpole is the sole corporate officer of Solomon Holdings. And then I took a ride over to Altadora Commons. It’s a development of new town houses not far from his address on Longboat Key. I’ll tell you a funny coincidence. I didn’t realize it until I pulled up in front of the complex, but I actually looked at one of those town houses with my real estate agent, right after I kicked Dexter out of the house. Prices aren’t bad, for Siesta, the unit I looked at was a resale, and they only wanted 575,000 dollars, but it was still way too pricey for my budget, and besides, I didn’t like the floorplan.”

Camryn leafed through