It Happened One Fright

by Elise Sax

  “Back away from her, now.”

  I started to cry. It was a quiet kind of crying with lots of tears, snot, and sniffing. But I did what he said and stood with my back to the wall. Spencer put cloth booties over his shiny, leather shoes and disposable gloves on his hands.

  He squatted next to Bridget. Her curls had fallen over her face, and he tucked them behind her ear. “You’re going to be fine. I promise,” he said, softly. His bossy voice was long gone. His dreamy, I’ll-take-care-of-you voice had replaced it. I loved that voice.

  My tears kept flowing. Spencer gently took Bridget’s arm and removed the knife from her hand. She looked at him, as if she was noticing him for the first time. “What are you doing here?” she asked him.

  Two paramedics stepped into the doorway. They had a stretcher and a large box of medical supplies. Spencer put a finger up in the air, directing them to stop in their tracks.

  “I’m here to make sure you’re okay,” Spencer told Bridget.

  “Oh. I don’t feel well.”

  “I know. We’re going to have you checked out at the hospital.”

  “I’m going with her,” I said.

  “Yes, we’re going to have you checked out, too,” Spencer said.

  “I’m fine,” I said and blubbered, loudly.

  “The hospital is in negotiation with the nurse’s union. I’m not sure I should go there until they work out the benefits package,” Bridget told Spencer.

  Spencer helped her up, holding her close, her bloody clothes staining his expensive suit forever. He walked her to the stretcher, and they helped her on to it, all the while, taking her vitals and those of her baby.

  I followed them out, but Spencer stopped me. “You all right, Pinky?” he asked, his eyes sparkling with what could have been tears, but I wasn’t sure.

  “I’m worried about Bridget.”

  “Okay.”

  He walked me out, and Bridget, Spencer, and I got in the ambulance together. The mayor was on the sidewalk, talking to the Buckstars refugees.

  “Back to your eggs, townspeople,” he bellowed. “Nothing to see here. Get back to your eggs. Remember the eggs!”

  The hospital waiting room had orange tiled floor and green walls. That’s what I focused on while I waited. They had brought Bridget in immediately when we arrived, in order to check the baby. Spencer had gone with her for police business, but I was told to stay here.

  “What‘re you in for?” a man sitting next to me asked.

  “I think I’m in shock or just grossed out. What are you in for? Gallbladder?”

  “Aliens.”

  I scooted a little away from him. “Aliens?”

  He pointed to his forehead. There was a drop of dried blood there, like he had popped a pimple. “They tried to cut out my brain. Normally, they suck it out through your ear, you know?”

  “Uh…”

  “But these aliens they got around here now are coming after us right through the noggin.”

  “What do the aliens look like?” I asked. I didn’t believe in aliens, but I wanted to play on the safe side and know what I should be looking out for.

  “Don’t know. I was sleeping when they attacked. My dog scared them off. I also have a ghost in my house. He’s got horns. A bastard when it rains. Bad weather makes him angry.”

  I nodded. Finally, the nurse called me back to the emergency room, and I was given a clean bill of health. Then, I was allowed to visit Bridget, who was two beds down and guarded by Terri, while Spencer was on his phone, barking orders.

  “Be careful what you say to her,” Terri sneered at me. “I’m watching you.”

  I didn’t like that Terri was standing between me and my best friend. I didn’t like that Terri had been trying to break up my first match and forcing Fred to look up people’s butts. So, I broke. I flipped out on Terri, forgetting that I was supposed to try to make her like me.

  “You listen to me, Terri,” I spat, punctuating my words by poking her chest with my index finger. “That’s my best friend in that bed over there, and she’s scared. So, I’m going to help her. And you’re not going to get in my way.”

  “Your friend had a bloody knife in her hand. You should choose your friends more wisely.” She took her ticket book out and started writing me another one.

  “What’s that for?” I asked, trying to look at the ticket.

  She clutched the book close to her chest. “Interfering with hospital guarding and being annoying.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said.

  “Gladie, come here,” Bridget called. I walked inside her room, stuck my tongue out at Terri, and shut the door. Going to Bridget’s bedside, I held her hand.

  “You shouldn’t antagonize her like that,” Bridget told me.

  “I’ve been trying to make friends, but she’s impossible.”

  “Well, the antagonizing thing isn’t working for you, either.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I have to kill her with kindness. But why are we talking about that now? We have more important things to talk about.”

  “The baby’s fine,” Bridget said. She was wearing her hoot owl glasses, but her blue eye shadow had smeared down her face. The blood had been washed off, and the color had returned to her face.

  “I’m so glad. What happened with Brad?”

  “He called me late last night and said terrible things. He threatened me if I wouldn’t meet him this morning. I thought I could talk some reason into him.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “Nothing. I went into the back room, and there he was with a knife in his chest. At first, I didn’t understand what was happening. I thought maybe he was playing a terrible joke on me. I grabbed the knife and pulled. Blood spurted out when I took out the knife. Blood everywhere. That’s when everything went black.”

  “You went into shock.”

  “I went into shock,” she agreed.

  “Who killed him? Do you have any idea?”

  “It could have been anyone.”

  “Anyone who had ever met him,” I agreed.

  The door opened, and Spencer walked in. His suit was stained with dried blood.

  “Do you have any suspects?” I asked him.

  He arched an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side. “Gladie,” he said, dragging out my name, like he was chastising a small child.

  An uncomfortable silence descended on the room. I looked at Spencer and then to Bridget and back again. “You don’t mean,” I began.

  “Bridget, I’m going to have to read you your rights,” Spencer said, gently.

  “I know my rights. Why are you going to read them to me?” Bridget asked.

  I stomped my foot. “Spencer Bolton, you’re not going to do this.”

  “Gladie, this is my job. This is what I do. You have to stay out of it.”

  “What do you do?” Bridget asked. “What do you…Oh,” she said, finally understanding. “But I didn’t kill him, Spencer. I found him there.”

  “This is standard procedure, Bridget. You were found at the scene of the crime with the murder weapon in your hand. I’m going to have to arrest you.”

  I stomped my foot, again. “If you do this, Spencer Bolton, I will never let you be generous with me again!”

  The door opened, and Lucy stormed in. She was holding up a thick wad of cash, and she was tugging an old man in an expensive suit behind her. “Don’t say a word, Bridget, darlin’,” she cried. “Don’t say a mother lovin’ word. I have your bail money and your lawyer. He could get Manson off, so you have nothing to worry about.”

  “I’m not Manson,” Bridget said.

  “Of course you’re not, darlin’. Spencer, who do I give this money to?”

  Lucy wasn’t lying about her lawyer. He got Bridget out on her own recognizance. Of course, it was also a small town, and Bridget was the judge’s bookkeeper, and it was two days before taxes were due. And she was pregnant, and nobody wanted to see her behind bars.

  But ever
yone thought she was guilty.

  “Hormones,” the judge said as an aside to the clerk at the bail hearing, and the clerk nodded back to him.

  I didn’t think any amount of hormones were necessary to kill Bradford Blythe. He had been a royal bastard. After Bridget was released, Lucy and I brought her home, tucked her into bed, gave her a mug of hot chocolate, and handed her her laptop after she insisted that she needed to work.

  “You’ve been training for this moment your whole life,” Lucy told me as we sat on Bridget’s bed, drinking hot chocolate.

  “I have?”

  “You’re going to solve this mystery. You have to find the killer, and get the fuzz off of Bridget.”

  “Oh, would you do that, Gladie? That would make me so happy,” Bridget said, smiling for the first time in hours.

  I swallowed. “I’ll try,” I said. Normally, I would have jumped at solving a mystery. But the pressure was terrible. What if I let Bridget down and she wound up in jail?

  “You can do this,” Lucy said. “And happy birthday, darlin’. I guess we’ll have to celebrate later.” She handed me a wrapped gift, which smelled strongly of an expensive perfume.

  “Thank you, Lucy.”

  “It’s French. Enjoy.”

  It wasn’t until I was outside that I remembered that I didn’t have a car, and it was too far to walk home. I was stuck, but I was also relieved to have a moment to myself, just me and the fresh air. So much had happened in the past couple days, and it was difficult to take stock. I took a deep breath and was thankful for it. There was a lot to do, a lot to think about, and I didn’t know where to start. But it turned out that I wasn’t going to have a lot of time to myself to think on that sidewalk. A car drove up and stopped in front of me.

  The window opened and Ruth stuck her head out. “Get in, girl. The cavalry’s here.”

  Her short hair framed her serious face. She projected a definite sense of purpose. “How did you know I was here?”

  “How do you think? Your grandmother, of course. She made me put Julie in charge of Tea Time. Not that I had any customers. The whole town is hiding from Bridget and boiling their stupid-ass eggs.”

  I got into the car. “She told me I have to help you,” Ruth continued. “Normally, I wouldn’t listen to her. Third eye, my Aunt Fanny. And I don’t give two hoots about her heart event. Do you know how many heart events I’ve had?”

  “Five?”

  “Three. This is only her first one. After my first one, I was back at Tea Time an hour later. So, I don’t give a rat’s patootie about her event.”

  “So why are you doing it?”

  “Dementia, of course. It’s the first sign.”

  She turned onto our street. “I don’t think I need any help,” I said, but I wasn’t so sure. This was a big mystery with no suspects, and if I didn’t solve it, my best friend would wind up in prison for the rest of her life.

  “Holy moly, girl,” Ruth said. “You got that look you get. Like you’ve got a tiger by the tail.”

  I didn’t have a tiger by the tail. I didn’t know who killed Bradford Blythe. I didn’t even have a clue. But… “It’s the weirdest thing, Ruth. The past couple days, I’ve gotten the feeling that everyone is lying to me. Like nothing is the way it seems.”

  It would take a lot of effort to take it apart and figure out where the truth lay. But one thing I knew was that I couldn’t trust anyone.

  “Being in the tea business for nearly a century, I can tell you that the minute you trust a person, you’re doomed,” Ruth said, wisely.

  Ruth parked in the driveway, and we went into my grandmother’s house. Thankfully, the egg people weren’t there, but Bird had come to bring lunch for my grandmother and Meryl, and Grandma was sitting in the kitchen, out of bed for the first time since her heart event. I gave her a kiss.

  “Sit down, Gladie,” Bird said. “I brought enough for everyone. You’re in for a treat. This 1950s diet is the best.”

  The table was set with a ham, mashed potatoes, overcooked green beans, and a pineapple upside down cake. Bird put a Jello mold onto the table as I sat.

  “What the hell is this?” Ruth asked. “Am I having a flashback? If Eisenhower walks through the door, I’m killing myself.”

  “Shut up, Ruth,” Bird said. “This is the 1950s diet. Nobody was fat in the 1950s. It was the good old days.”

  “Yeah, the good old days,” Ruth grumbled. “Maxi pads six inches thick, girdles that cut you in half, and no women’s rights. Perfect.”

  Despite her complaining, she was eyeing the ham intently, and she licked her lips. She sat down and picked up her fork. “Hello, Zelda. How’s the heart?” she asked.

  “A little tired, but fine. Aching to get back to my matches, though. You know how it is to have a calling, Ruth.”

  Ruth nodded. “Tea’s my life. Meryl, why do you have a bird on your shoulder?”

  “I’m hoping that through closeness with me, he’ll learn English again,” Meryl said.

  “Is that some kind of Jane Goodall thing?”

  The food was delicious, but my thoughts were elsewhere. It was important to figure out why I was being lied to, and what the truth was. My first stop would have to be the scene of the crime.

  “Have you ever heard of a body buried under the ceramic cat store, Grandma?” I asked.

  “I have,” Bird said, chewing ham. “I hear it’s Jimmy Hoffa under there.”

  “I heard it was Moe McGregor, the miner that settled this town,” Meryl said. “I heard that he was killed with a pick axe, and his gold nuggets were stolen.”

  “That’s a Bonanza episode,” Bird said, pointing her fork at Meryl.

  My grandmother shrugged. “I know love, dolly. Not murder.”

  It could have been a miner or Jimmy Hoffa, but I was wondering if it was someone more recent than that, or if it was nobody at all, and Liz Essex was lying to me. I did think she was lying, but not lying about a body. For some reason, she wanted me to know that somebody was buried there, and I didn’t trust her motivation.

  Looking at Ruth out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that she was being awfully quiet.

  “I think I’ll go over there after lunch,” I said. Ruth smiled slightly. She would have loved an excuse to stir up trouble at Buckstars.

  “You might make a match today, too,” my grandmother said.

  I sighed. Being employed was such a pain in the ass.

  After lunch, I helped Bird wash the dishes, and Ruth helped Grandma go back to bed. Ruth and I met at her car afterward.

  “Buckstars?” she asked me eagerly while she unlocked her car.

  “Can you behave when you’re there?”

  “Gladie, they filled my dumpster with their corporate to-go cups, and that bastard Ford stole my Tea Time sign. I still haven’t found it.”

  “An eye for an eye, Ruth. You weren’t nice to their sign.”

  “Whose side are you on, girl? Choose wisely.” She squinted at me, her face all wrinkles and droop. Her hair was severe with its short bowl cut. She was a fearsome woman.

  “Yours,” I chose.

  I wasn’t stupid.

  We parked in front of Tea Time. Main Street was dead, probably because of the real death that happened a couple hours before. “How’re we doing this?” Ruth asked me, as we stood on the sidewalk. “Good cop, bad cop? I’ll be the bad cop. I’ve got a Yellow Pages inside. I could whack the bastard across the head with it. That’ll make him talk.”

  “Good idea, but maybe we’ll save the Yellow Pages for an emergency.”

  Ruth made a gun with her hand and shot me. “Gotcha.”

  “You know, maybe I should go in alone,” I suggested.

  “Nice try, Gladie. Your grandmother told me to stick with you.”

  Ruth never let anyone tell her what to do, let alone my grandmother, which meant she was using that as an excuse to harass the Buckstars owners. “Try to behave,” I said.

  “I’m eighty-six. What you see is
what you get.”

  But I didn’t have to worry about Ruth behaving because the door to Buckstars was locked and nobody answered when I knocked.

  “Cowards,” Ruth said. “They let a little murder shut them down. If you don’t have the cajones for retail, you should get out now.”

  What was I going to do? I needed to investigate the scene of the crime.

  “Look, Gladie,” Ruth said, pointing. “It’s the supermodel cop, and she doesn’t look too happy to see you.”

  Sure enough, Terri was jaywalking across the street, and she already had her ticket book open. And she was writing in it.

  “What now?” I whined.

  “Loitering while annoying,” Terri said. “Breaking and entering at a crime scene.”

  “I’m standing on the sidewalk.”

  “In Uggs. I’ll write a ticket for that, too.”

  “What on earth did you do to her, Gladie?” Ruth asked. It was a fair question. Besides probably being responsible for her demotion, I hadn’t done a damned thing. Now that I knew she wasn’t in love with Spencer, but in love with Fred, I couldn’t figure out why she hated me so much. It was making me crazy.

  “Can’t we be friends?” I asked Terri, and she grunted in response.

  “What the hell?” Ruth asked, looking down the street.

  It looked like a balloon was walking toward us, and it kept saying, “Ha-cha! Ha-cha!” and doing karate chops in the air.

  “This town has more wackos then Bellevue,” Ruth grumbled. “It’s coming this way. You want me to get my Yellow Pages?”

  Terri took a step backward. “It’s like a rabid dog, but it’s walking on two legs.”

  “It’s a sumo wrestler,” I breathed, rubbing my eyes because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. What were the odds?

  “No, it’s a woman dressed up like a sumo wrestler. It’s one of those weird blow-up costumes,” Ruth said.

  The woman continued to shout, “Ha-cha! Ha-cha!” as she walked, karate chopping the air.

  “It’s coming at me in a threatening manner,” Terri said, touching her holstered gun.

  “I’ll handle this for you,” I told her, trying to be helpful and make her my friend.

  I ran up to the sumo wrestler. Ruth was right. It was a woman, dressed in a large, balloon-like sumo wrestler costume.