“Charlie.” I laid a tentative hand on her arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. Do you want me to take you over to the bar today? You could pack some more clothes and pick up what you wanted from the kitchen.”
She met my eyes, her expression inscrutable. “I don’t have that much stuff. Everything there belonged to Uncle Reg.”
“Well, sure, I understand that, but did he have kids? Or any other family? I mean, is there anyone who’s going to want the bar and everything in it, besides you?”
Charlie shrugged. “Not that I know of. Reg never mentioned family. He was always good to Aunt Val and me, but we never had, like, deep talks about the past. Or the future.”
“You’re going to have to find out if he had a will. Who knows, he might’ve left you everything.” I wasn’t trying to get rid of Charlie, but over the past few days, she hadn’t made any moves to do much of anything. She’d been hiding out in the guest room, rebuffing all my attempts to lure her out with food or offers of socializing. She’d even ignored Mrs. Mac, who was the past champion of cajoling intractable young women into being her friend.
Not that the older lady had taken offense. “She’s just sad, honey, that’s all.” Mrs. Mac had shaken her head. “Imagine. She’s been abandoned and left behind so many times, and this just feels like one more kick in the stomach. Why on earth would she trust strangers like you or me when the people who’re supposed to be there for her haven’t been?”
She had a point, but still . . . having been raised by women who made sure I understood the niceties of life, manners and how I was supposed to behave made it tough for me to remember that Charlie hadn’t had that advantage. I couldn’t imagine staying in someone’s house and not at least trying to be pleasant, even if I was hurting. That was why this morning, I’d finally resorted to using guilt to pull her out, saying I needed help with a new recipe I was trying for my catering venture. She’d followed me into the kitchen without hesitation, and we’d been working well, if silently, side-by-side, until her comment about the knives.
Now she squinted at me, as if considering my comment about the possibility of a will.
“Reg wasn’t exactly the plan-ahead type. He probably wasn’t a very good businessman. And I’m not related to him at all, so I doubt the courts or whatever would think of me as someone who should get his shit. I don’t have any claim.” She paused, her eyebrows knit together. “I do have a car over there, though. It’s mine.” This was as much information as she’d given me to date, and I perked up a little.
“Well, that’s something. I could drive you over to pick it up, and then maybe you’d feel like you have a little more freedom here. You could explore, and just . . . you know. Get out and see what’s what.”
“I don’t have to stay here.” The defiance was back. “I can always find someplace else to crash.”
I was walking a fine and shaky line here, and at the moment, I’d have cheerfully wrung my boyfriend’s neck for putting me in this position. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do that, since he’d been missing in action for the past two days, checking in with me via text with vague if supportive messages, assuring me that he was fine, just busy with a lot of death brokerings (he called them Reckonings) and some research Cathryn, our de facto boss, had asked him to do on the save-the-world front.
“Charlie.” I tried to sound compassionate and at the same time avoid patronizing her. “You are welcome here, for as long as you want to stay. I know this is a kind of unusual situation. I understand that you don’t know me, you don’t know Lucas, and living in the middle of a senior citizen community probably isn’t your dream come true. I’m not forcing you to stay with me. But at the same time, I’m not kicking you out, either. Everything is up to you.”
She studied me without answering for a few seconds, and then she gave a quick nod. “Okay.” Picking up my clearly-unsatisfactory knife, she began dicing an onion.
I won the battle to keep from rolling my eyes, but barely. Okay? What was that supposed to mean? Okay, she understood? Okay, she was leaving? Okay, thank you for letting me, a complete and largely-hostile stranger, stay in your home for an unspecified amount of time?
I couldn’t think of a nice way to ask any of those important questions, so I sighed and went back to the meat I’d just browned, which was draining over paper towels at the moment. I was working on a pocket taco idea, something that could be served easily at parties or picnics, which tended to make up most of the catering needs in this part of the world. I didn’t plan on putting together menus that revolved around an intriguing little finger sandwich; that wasn’t going to fly in this area of the world.
My phone buzzed in the pocket of my jeans, drawing my attention away from cooking as I saw the name on the caller ID readout. Lucas.
“About time, lover.” Sarcasm oozed from my words. “I was beginning to think you’d skipped town.”
“No.” He sounded strained. “Are you alone, Jackie?”
“Ummmm . . .” I glanced over my shoulder at Charlie, who seemed to be wholly absorbed in her chopping. “Just a sec.”
Dropping the hand that held the phone to my side, I addressed the younger woman. “Hey, I need to step out to take this. Can you add that onion to the meat and then return the whole thing to the skillet? I’ll start working on the sauce next and add it when I’m done here.”
She gave me a curt nod and a lift of her shoulder. I decided to accept that as the most enthusiastic response I was going to get and went out the back door to sit on the stoop.
“Okay, shoot. I’m here. What’s going on?”
There was some kind of muffled noise on the other end, but I could still hear Lucas. “I had a Reckoning this morning. It was Mrs. Schmidt, Jackie. I wanted you to hear it from me.”
I frowned. “Norma? But . . .” My voice trailed off. I didn’t know Norma Schmidt tremendously well; she’d joined Mrs. Mac’s neighborhood dinners now and then, and I remembered that she’d been a concert pianist once upon a time. She was from Austria, and she’d retained a trace of her accent, even though she’d lived in the States for well over forty years. “She was young. I mean, younger than most of the other people around here.”
“I know. She didn’t die of old age, Jackie, or of anything natural. She was murdered.”
My eyes slid closed. “Shit. Really? Again?”
“Yeah, my sentiments exactly.” Lucas blew out a sigh, and I could picture him raking one hand through his hair. “I was in and out before the cops got there, so I don’t know any details, but there was still someone in the house when the advocates and I showed up. I didn’t get a look at a face.”
“How—” I cleared my throat. “How did it happen? Was she shot?”
“No. I’m pretty sure it was strangulation, judging by what I saw. Her eyes—”
“Stop.” I held out a hand even though I knew Lucas couldn’t see me. “I don’t need that visual. Bad enough I have to know she was killed. God, this is crazy. Are you sure when you got vamped and turned into a death broker at the same time that they didn’t also decide to give you an extra special gift of murder solving? You should totally ask the advocates if it’s normal for death brokers to see so many violent deaths.”
“Maybe.” He hesitated. “There was kind of something else, Jacks.”
Dread tiptoed up my spine. Lucas only used his nickname for me when he was hoping for sexy time or about to deliver bad news. Since a booty call seemed unlikely in this scenario, I had to assume it was the latter.
“What?”
“There was a poster next to the kitchen table. It was for the Ms. Florida Senior Living Pageant, and Mrs. Schmidt was a contestant. Her picture was right above Mrs. Mac’s, and when I looked at it, I realized I’d been to another Reckoning last week for someone else in the pageant.”
“Are you saying that you think someone’s targeting the women in this thing? Why in the hell would anyone do that?” I considered the possibilities for a moment. “Unless it’s
someone trying to weed out the competition. And even then, murder seems a little extreme for a local senior citizen pageant, where the prize is a couple hundred bucks and a gift certificate for a year of perms from the Beauty Barn.”
“Maybe it’s just coincidence. But it doesn’t feel like it.”
“Could some old woman even manage to strangle someone? I can see poison or maybe pushing the competition down a flight of steps, but this would take a lot of strength in the hands, right? I can’t see someone like Mrs. Mac, for example, being able to do that.”
“Not with her hands, certainly, but with a scarf or a belt? Probably.” Lucas paused. “Not that I think Mrs. Mac did this. But I do think she might be at risk, so I want you to keep your eye on her, okay? Just make sure nothing hinky is going on. No strangers in her house, and tell her to keep her doors locked.”
“Okay.” My stomach clenched. Mrs. Mac could be a royal pain at times, but I loved her like she was my own grandma, and I couldn’t bear it if anything were to happen to her.
Something else occurred to me. “Lucas, you’ve heard Mrs. Mac’s numbers. How long she has to live. I know you did, back when you first met her. Do those numbers match up to her dying now?”
One of the odd side effects of being a death broker was that Lucas could hear how much time each person he met had left on this earth. It hadn’t happened with me—thank God—and he’d since learned to block that part of his gift, but when we’d gotten to know each other, he’d admitted to me that he had heard Mrs. Mac’s time left.
“No,” he answered me now. “As far as I can remember, they don’t. The thing is, though, those numbers can change. You know that precogs tell us our choices affect the future, so it’s tough to predict most things with accuracy. It’s the same with my numbers. If something has shifted since I heard them, they might not be right. So just watch her. But don’t tell Mrs. Mac anything. I don’t want her to freak out and go crazy telling everyone that a murderer is stalking the contestants of the Ms. Florida Senior Living Pageant. Talk about causing a stir.”
“Yeah, I get that. I’ll try to be discreet. But you know Mrs. Mac. She’s not exactly the cautious, retiring type.”
“Well, do your best.” The noise in the background grew louder, and Lucas said something I couldn’t quite make out. I assumed he was talking to someone near him. “Look, Jackie, I have to go. I’m going to try to get home early tonight and come over to see you, but I’m not sure what’s going on yet. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Where are you?” I trusted my boyfriend, but it wasn’t like him to be out of touch like this, and we seldom went more than a day or two without seeing each other. I was curious, and given the uncertain state of the world, teetering on the brink of chaos as it was, I was more than a little worried.
He exhaled, the sound amplified by the phone. “I’m up at Carruthers. I came here to meet with Rafe, and then, of course, after the Reckoning today, I was returned here. We should be finished going over this information by this afternoon, and barring any more calls to broker deaths, I’ll be home around dinner.”
“Okay.” I tried not to sound neglected and lonely, but I wasn’t sure I’d succeeded.
“Hang in there, baby.” Lucas’ voice softened. “I love you. I miss you.”
“I love you, too.” I rushed to get out the words before he hung up. When there was nothing but emptiness on the other end, I clicked the phone off and stood up, stretching, glancing over at Mrs. Mac’s house with trepidation. Keeping my eye on her without letting her know wasn’t going to be easy, but I had an idea. It involved my neighbor’s two favorite things: food and gossip.
“This was such a good idea.” Mrs. Mac lifted up her glass of wine and grinned at us. “An old-fashioned girls’ night! I haven’t done this in . . .” She cast her eyes upwards, calculating. “Oh, Jackie, probably not since Maureen had her first stroke. That’s been over five years. Way too long.”
I smiled, thinking of Nana and how much fun she and Mrs. Mac had had together when they had both been healthy and spry. I missed my grandmother keenly, but sometimes the short period of time I’d lived with her here in this house seemed like it had happened to someone else. I’d been hurt and humiliated then, nursing a badly bruised heart after my near-miss of marrying an already-married man. Watching Nana struggle to recover from her stroke, only to succumb to a second one, had been painful, but I was grateful now that I’d been given the gift of those days with her.
“That’s nothing.” Charlie spoke up from across the table. “I’ve never done this before at all. Ever.” She pointed at Mrs. Mac next to her, my friend Nichelle in the chair alongside me and then at herself. “You know, hanging with girls.”
To her credit, Nichelle just nodded. “Your friends were all guys?”
Charlie shook her head. “Nope. Didn’t have any friends. Just my aunt and Reg, and all the people who came into the bar.”
I tried to hide the stab of sympathy that hit my chest. I knew Charlie didn’t want pity. But Mrs. Mac was never one to read the room and act accordingly, so she didn’t bother hiding anything.
“Oh, honey, that’s just not right. A woman needs girlfriends. Men have their uses, sure, and I’m one who likes a nice strong man, for sure, but girlfriends listen to your secrets. They hold your heart.” She reached across the table and patted the young woman’s hand. “But don’t you worry, because now you’ve got us. Jackie and me, we’ve been tight for years. And now Nichelle’s one of us, and you, too. We’re like a little pack.”
I giggled, sipping my wine. “Does that make you the alpha, Mrs. Mac?”
“Damn tootin’.” She lifted her glass in a toast. “I’m the oldest, and I’m the most experienced. So you should all listen to my advice. I’m . . . what’s that word? Sage. That’s it. I’m sage.”
Next to me, Nichelle snorted. “Mrs. Mac, you know I love you, lady, but there are times when you’re nuttier than an almond orchard.”
That struck me as inordinately funny, and I nearly fell out of my chair, laughing. Nichelle joined me, one hand clutching at my arm. Charlie just looked at us, shaking her head.
“So what do we do now? Braid each other’s hair and sing campfire songs?”
“No.” Mrs. Mac tipped back her wine glass. “We talk about the real deal. Men. Our love lives. And who’s doing who around the ‘hood.”
That got me giggling all over again. “Mrs. Mac, we live in an over-fifty-five community. The ‘hood it is not.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. There’s more action around here than there is in your typical college dorm. Did you know Lorna Peeks is sneaking into Arnie Coolidge’s bed on the sly? She waits until nine o’clock because she figures all the neighbors are in bed, but not everyone retires after the re-run of Lawrence Welk on PBS. And you know that girl who comes in to do housecleaning for Saul Rupinski? I don’t think she’s just changing his sheets, if you know what I mean. His wife’s been in long-term care at the memory unit at Spencer Creek for two years now. I guess a man gets lonely, huh?”
I cringed. Saul Rupinski was a sweet old man. His wife Dora had been the kind of dementia patient who simply faded away; she had never been belligerent or violent. It was only when she began to wander and Saul couldn’t keep track of her that he’d reluctantly allowed her to be placed at Spencer Creek. Happily, the ‘girl’ Mrs. Mac had referenced was actually a good decade and a half older than me. If she was keeping a lonely man company . . . well, I wasn’t going to throw stones.
Changing the subject subtly, I pushed the cheese platter her way. “Did you try this Danish bleu, Mrs. Mac? If you have it with the figs, it’s divine.”
“I’m so glad I’m done with breastfeeding.” Nichelle reached for a piece of crusty bread and the cheese knife. “I can eat all the shit I want to and not worry about upsetting the baby’s stomach. It’s so freeing.”
“If you’re done nursing, must be time for another baby.” Mrs. Mac elbowed Charlie in the ribs, makin
g her part of the joke. Charlie just frowned.
“Bite your tongue.” Nichelle waved her hand. “I’m done. Three kiddos are just enough for me, thanks very much. Don’t get me wrong, I love them all and I’d kill for them. But I’m ready to have my body back. Ready to have some grown-up conversation once a month or so.”
“Aw, does that mean you’re not going to bring Jack with you anymore when you stop by for deliveries? I miss my little guy.” I’d delivered Nichelle’s youngest child—on my front lawn, no less—when she’d gone into labor suddenly while dropping off blood for Lucas. She’d been so grateful for my help that she’d named the baby after me. I was touched and grateful; we’d become close friends since the first time we’d met on the day she delivered Lucas’ initial batch of blood in Florida. That delivery had been my first clue that something was different about the new next-door neighbor.
Now Nichelle shook her head. “Nah, I couldn’t keep him away from his Aunt Jackie. I’ll bring him by every three days.”
“What do you deliver every three days?” Charlie cocked her head at us, curious.
“Uh . . .” Mentally I scrambled. The cover story we’d used with Mrs. Mac as to why Lucas received a white Styrofoam cooler every few days had never come up in front of Nichelle. But now they all looked at me expectantly. I noticed Nichelle had raised one eyebrow. She and I never talked about why Lucas needed to have bags of blood so frequently, but I had a sense his wasn’t the only odd delivery she made. She’d once mentioned that her company specialized in making discreet drop-offs to unusual clients.
“You can tell her the truth, Jackie.” Mrs. Mac flung one arm around Charlie’s shoulders. “She’s not going to judge him. Are you, honey?”
Now both of Nichelle’s brows were practically in her hairline as she waited for my response. I went with the only answer that would satisfy at least one person in the room.
“Lucas has a condition which requires experimental medication. It has to be delivered right from the manufacturer, and Nichelle’s company does that sort of thing.” I didn’t meet my friend’s eyes. “But don’t worry. It’s not contagious or anything. He’s fine.”
Death Over Easy Page 3
