Skinny Dipping by Connie Brockway

beings.
    Prescott had discovered that her name was Mignonette Olson. Mrs . Olson, he assumed because, first of all, being short and dark, she didn’t look anything like the big blond Olsons, and second, he couldn’t imagine her not sharing her life with someone. She was a sharing sort. He could only conclude by the absence of a Mr. Olson worshipping at her feet that she was a widow. A childless widow.
    And he was an orphan. Or as good as one.
    He released a gusty sigh and pushed away from the wall. He wondered what she was saying to Joe. Were they talking about his house? Was Joe trying to charm her? She didn’t look charmed. She looked frankly disgusted.
    Take that, Joe, Prescott thought, mentally pumping his arm. Your sleep-aid-commercial voice and used-car-salesman charm aren’t going to cut it with a woman like Mrs. Olson. She’s not so easily bamboozled.
    A shout drew his attention back outside. He looked down to see a teenage boy racing out of the woods, gesticulating wildly.
    Prescott gnawed his thumbnail. He wanted to hear what was going on but he didn’t want the Olsons to think he was eavesdropping, and he was afraid they might see him if he lifted the window sash. On the other hand, everyone had turned their attention to the kid.
    Prescott dropped to all fours and crawled under the window, reaching up and shoving the sash up an inch or so. He was going to pay for this tonight when his allergies kicked in, but it was worth it. Observing the Olsons had become more than an idle pastime. He’d invested so many hours watching them, he felt he’d adopted them.
    “—a funeral pyre!” the giant blond male was bellowing.
    Prescott curled his fingers over the lip of the sill and peeked over. The people had circled around the kid.
    “Yes, sir! She’s down at the dock right now pouring kerosene over a stack of kindling in the center of the pontoon.”
    Prescott snatched the binoculars he kept by the window and rose to his knees. He trained the lenses on the small area of the beach visible in front of the blistered old two-story house at Chez Ducky. Sure enough, an older woman wearing some sort of white drapery stood knee-deep in the water, upending a red gallon can of liquid on top of a pile of branches in the middle of some sort of raft. He lowered the binoculars and pressed his ear to the window opening.
    “That doesn’t make any sense,” the skinny redheaded woman next to Mrs. Olson was saying. “There isn’t any Ardis to burn.”
    “She’s got a poster of Ardis on top of the wood,” the kid exclaimed.
    “Aw, geez,” the blond guy muttered.
    Prescott adjusted the focus on the raft. Yup. A life-sized, grainy picture of an old woman carrying a golf bag stuck out of the branches. As Prescott watched, the woman in the water struck a match and threw it onto the twigs. Fire flared up, followed by a black belch of smoke.
    He wasn’t the only one to see the smoke. Mrs. Olson spied it, too. “Holy shit,” she said. “We better get over there before she burns the whole place down.”
    She struck off into the woods with the others close behind.
    Including, Prescott noted with a hollow sensation, Joe. But then, what did he expect? That Joe would have preferred his company?
    Not likely.

Chapter Eight
    Birgie plopped down on the plastic lawn chair she’d dragged down to the beach and watched the spectacle unfold.
    As Viking funerary boats went, Naomi’s was a piss-poor example, but none of the crowd gathered round to watch seemed disappointed. Friends and neighbors and whoever the hell else these people were stood three deep on the beach, watching the pontoon bobbing gently twenty feet offshore, the poster of Ardis jouncing so gaily it seemed like Ardis was doing a little victory dance.
    Maybe she was, Birgie thought. She should ask Mimi.
    After the initial belch of smoke erupting from beneath the scaffolding Naomi had constructed, the fire had petered down to a few flames. Naomi, who’d pushed the pontoon