“Beggars and choosers, darling. Besides, it’s apricot, not salmon.”
“And since it’s a memorial,” Annette continued, “shouldn’t this be black?”
“Your coloring demands apricot! You have enough black. Yech. Here. No, bend forward. More. More. Oh, just stand still. My God. You’re like a child.”
“I know you are, but what am I? And any clothing I need help putting on is clothing I will never wear again,” Annette warned, her voice muffled as the silky material rolled past her face.
“Do shut up, Annette.” Nadia fussed with the thing, coaxing it to fall and drape wherever it was supposed to fall and drape. Annette had to admit, once it was on, it was fairly comfortable. It was an off-the-shoulder dress with a nipped-in waist and a hem that fell just below her knees. And, she realized, pivoting, it did terrific things for her big butt. Which was irrelevant, but nice.
“It’s supposed to hit at mid-calf,” Nadia fussed, “but you’re obscenely tall. Legs too long, hair too wild, face too pale, figure too zaftig.”
“You forgot about my scurvy and chronic trench mouth.”
“And yet, my unerring fashion sense will be able to camouflage all of it.”
“Her legs are perfect,” David said, looking pretty perfect himself. “And so’s her hair and her face and her zaftig. She doesn’t have to change a thing.”
“David, you’re just too adorable sometimes.”
“I thought it would itch,” Annette confessed, petting the fabric.
“Yes, it’s polyester, I’m aware, Annette. I was under considerable time constraints, and I am appalled, appalled, at the depth of your ingratitude.”
“I meant because of the lace patchwork around the shoulders. But see?” She wriggled her (nearly bare) shoulders. “No itching.”
“Oh. Very good. Now, David, your coloring demands embalmment. Which wasn’t an option, but I did the best I could. And I’ll remind you—”
“You don’t have to remind us. But you will.” David coughed. “A lot.”
“—that my best is better than 95 percent of anyone else’s best.”
“Only 95 percent? It’s fine.” David was in black slacks, a black mock turtleneck, and a black suit jacket. “Not to sound ungrateful, but how’d you know all my sizes?”
“I have eyes, don’t I?”
“It’s still creepy.”
Nadia sniffed and turned back to Annette, holding out a black cardigan with pearl buttons. “No, no, don’t put your arms through the sleeves! That’s not what they’re for.”
“What are they for?”
“To help you look breezy and relaxed,” Nadia replied, exasperated.
“I’m neither. It’s a memorial, not a regatta, and the sweater eventually falls off.”
“Look, you demanded my help—”
“David and I called and politely asked where Lund’s memorial was taking place.”
“—and you’re getting it. Ah! David, that’s just excellent. No, leave that one unbuttoned, too. There. You two look marginally less horrifying than you did five minutes ago. I did the very best I could with the wretched material I had to work with.”
“It’s great,” Annette said, looking down at herself and over at David. “Thank you.”
“Very extremely great,” David said, giving Annette an appreciative once-over.
She could feel her face getting warm because her priorities were screwed and abruptly asked, “Can we talk about what happened with Gomph yesterday?”
“He couldn’t find you and was in high dudgeon. And then I left and have taken care not to be seen since.”
“Nadia, the whole point was for you to stay out of trouble by pretending to try to rein us in.”
“I am. My vacation started yesterday. And while I was chasing Gomph away from you like an aggrieved oxpecker—do stop laughing, David, I’m aware it’s an amusing mental image but get ahold of yourself—anyway, I made a rather large fuss about how I refused, refused, to miss my flight. And Oz was at my side, appropriately and loudly sympathetic. Everyone thinks I’m in the Badlands today and thus not helping you, nor hindering the bad guys. And speaking of hindering, have you seen Oz?”
“Have you? Because he looked terrible an hour ago.” David briefly explained Oz’s predicament and subsequent dispatchment to the studio. “But no witnesses and no plate number.”
“Why in the world would anyone want to maim an account—Oh, bugger.” Nadia raised stricken eyes to Annette. “I gave him all those account numbers to sift through. Lund’s wretched colleagues must be worried he’s found something.”
“At least we know he was on the right track.” When the women had nothing to say, he added, “Subjectively, that sucks, though. Worse than you having to cancel your vacation.”
Annette was still silent. Nadia’s vacations were plotted and planned like an invasion into a hostile territory. (Which was entirely possible, depending on Nadia’s destination that year.) Research began months in advance, as did the wardrobe dry runs. They were everything to her, and the prep work was damned entertaining to watch.
“I’m sorry. I forgot about your vacation,” she confessed.
“Me, too,” David added. Then: “The Badlands?”
“What?”
“I guess I figured you for… I dunno. Milan? Or Paris. Or Moscow. Or anywhere but South Dakota.”
“I wanted to see how bad your so-called Badlands are. And I would like to see a buffalo.”
Annette could picture Nadia soaring over Mount Rushmore, riding the thermals over 200,000 acres of wilderness with an occasional break to devour chipmunks and chicken nuggets. “I’m sorry.”
“It sucks that we wrecked your vacation,” David added.
“You didn’t wreck anything, the dead fuckstick did. And I’m glad Oz will make a full recovery.”
“A worry for another time. And maybe you’ll be able to see a buffalo anyway, since...” Buffalo. Sounds exotic. Or at least it would to someone from Great Britain, like Nadia. At least buffalo wouldn’t have to be imported. But are they exported? Because that would…
“Annette? Darling? You trailed off, and now you have a silly look on your face. Even for you.”
“Exotic pets,” Annette said slowly. “Lund was an importer and an exporter. We missed something.”
David snorted. “No doubt. Instead of getting ahead of it—any of it—we’ve just been reacting. Prob’ly missed a couple of things.”
“Maybe it’s not about the abuse per se,” Annette said. She could feel her brain trying to seize on…something. “Maybe it was his means to an end.”
“Your muttering is more nonsensical than usual, dear.”
Enough. It’ll come to you. “I think there’s a way we can get more info from Lund.”
“Does it involve a séance? I would adore a séance.”
“It does not. How many times do I have to tell you, no séances during work time! And your vacation might have been wrecked, but I’m pretty sure we can still arrange some entertainment.”
“I’m not especially worried.” Nadia shrugged. “That’s what vacation insurance is for.”
“There’s a clause for getting your money back when you miss your flight because you’re trying to keep your colleagues out of jail by distracting officers of the court?”
“There will be when I’m finished with them.”
“I don’t doubt it,” David said, and for that he got a megawatt smile from Nadia.
“Now! The memorial starts in twenty-five minutes and it’s in the next town over, so you two need to put the petal to the metal.”
“It’s pedal. With a d.”
“Do shut up, Annette.”
Chapter 29
“I never told Brennan my name. He called me Annette, but we didn’t even give him our cards. We didn’t want
to make it easy on him to alert IPA about what we were up to.”
“Jesus.” David, who had been turning into the White Funeral Home, nearly went into the ditch. “I was so busy talking myself out of throwing him out the window, I didn’t notice. That’s fucking embarrassing.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s good you didn’t throw him out the window.”
The parking lot was half-full, which was good as well as bad; there were fewer people to keep track of, but the two of them would stand out more. Even if one of them hadn’t been wearing salmon with a cardigan whose sleeves she wasn’t allowed to use. “Is this a hunch? I feel like this is a hunch. A hunch is the same as desperately clutching at straws, right?”
David shrugged. “It’s all we’ve got right now. Unless you want to go see Gomph and get arrested.”
“No. But an organized mind should always have a Plan B.”
David gallantly presented an elbow for her to grab and walked her up the sidewalk. It was a beautiful day, the kind Minnesota used to lure suckers into moving. Come on over! Feel that warm sunshine, smell that crisp air! Pick apples! Go on a hayride! Stroll through jewel-colored fallen leaves! (The winters aren’t that horrible.)
“You know, David, if not for the miasma of violent death hanging over this, we could be on a date.”
To her surprise, David took her seriously. “No. I’d never expect you to… I mean, obviously this isn’t a date.”
“Right. That’s…correct.” Say something. The only thing worse than an awkward pause is a looooong awkward pause. “I didn’t actually think it was. A date, I mean.”
“Good.”
“It’s the salmon, isn’t it?” she fretted. “It makes me look jaundiced and you’re turned off. Nadia won’t listen. I know what looks good against my own skin tone, dammit!”
“You don’t look orange.”
“Oh. Relief.”
“You look the opposite of orange.”
“I look blue?”
“No! Beautiful. I think you look beautiful.”
“Thank you. You look good, too. Are you all right? You’re sweating.” And it was something to see. The man hadn’t been this rattled when a faceless thug tried to run him down in a parking garage.
“Fucking mock turtleneck. Be a turtleneck or don’t, but what the hell is ‘mock’?” He hooked a finger in the collar and yanked. “Christ, it’s hot out here.”
“It’s sixty-five degrees out here. David, if my proximity is making you uncomfortable—”
“Of course it’s making me uncomfortable!” He came to a dead stop and she nearly stumbled. “Look at you! Just standing there in all your—you-ness!”
“Sorry, what?”
“You’re you—”
“You’re saying ‘you’ a lot, seems like.”
“—and I’m me, and you’re smart and gorgeous and funny and everybody likes you and it’s not just because you’re a softie, and yeah, you’re a softie, but you’re a hard softie, so it works, and you could be with anybody and it’s insane that all I want to do is take you someplace nice and feed you.” He stopped, heaved a breath. “And I know that’s ridiculous. You’ve made it perfectly clear.”
“But so did you.”
“What?”
“I’m sensing we’ve had a communication breakdown.”
“What?”
Annette looked at him. Beyond the disheveled good looks and the clothing he wore like armor was a man who could have done a fade once he dropped Caro off for processing, but didn’t. Who had leaped between her and a car driven with lethal intent. Who killed in defense of her cubs. Who kept to himself by choice, but didn’t hesitate to throw himself snout first into danger. Who trusted her instincts and introduced her to friends who knew his deepest secret. And in return, all he asked for was…nothing.
She hadn’t known any of this on Monday. He was just the guy who put maple syrup in everything on Monday. But it had all been there, all those good and noble things, like buried treasure.
“You’re an idiot,” she said kindly. “But I am, too. I kissed you, remember? Twice.”
“I initiated the first kiss.”
“Yes, and then I got even. Wait. I’ll rephrase.”
“It’s fine, I get what you mean.”
“And I’m the one who crawled into bed with you. Well. After you crawled in with me. Those are not the actions of someone who views you with disinterest.” She squeezed his arm. “We’re definitely going out when this is all over.”
“No. We’re not. That was my point.”
She nearly stumbled again. This wasn’t how the script in her head went. They would solve the case and go out and inhale a staggering amount of food and keep going out and perhaps fall in love, roll credits. “It was?”
“All my friends are Stables. And I won’t do to you what I did to my mother. I won’t have you looking over your shoulder every minute we’re together.”
“Maybe that’s something I should decide?”
He ignored her, which didn’t bode well. “You’d always feel pressure to share your secret because they know mine. You’d always wonder if they’re going to tell anyone outside the group and how that might blow back on you. And what if we have cubs?”
“You’ve given this a worrisome amount of thought.”
“You’d be constantly agonizing about their potential exposure. You’d probably want to move, and maybe keep moving, and you wouldn’t want so many Stables in our lives. So all these thoughts and fantasies I’ve been having—”
“You fantasize about me?”
“Constantly.”
“Oh.”
“And then, last night…that just made it worse.”
“Oh.”
“And it’s all pointless.”
“Oh?”
“Because nothing’s going to come of it, so it doesn’t matter that you look like Aphrodite on the half shell in salmon.”
“David, that’s ridiculous. My hair is much, much shorter than Aphrodite’s. Her hair runs past her knees in that painting.”
He ignored her accurate art critique and added, “You could be with anyone. And you should be.”
“Wait, what?” She hated when surprise made her voice squawk like that, but she had bigger problems. “You think I could be with anyone? You could be with anyone.”
“That’s idiotic.” He made a vague gesture in her direction. “Look at you.”
“Look at you.”
He raked his fingers through his hair, and it was hilarious that his hair looked exactly as mussed after the raking as before. “I’m just saying—”
“I heard you. Are you hearing me?”
“Yeah, because you’re shouting.”
“I am not!” She lowered her voice. “I am not,” she murmured.
“All right. So. We each think the other could be with anyone, and we each feel unworthy.”
“Unworthy is a strong—”
“So let’s just admit we both suck.”
“You’re damned right we suck!”
“Yelling.”
“Shut up, David.”
“Ah…pardon me?”
They looked. A short, chubby man in a black suit, crisp white shirt, and subtle gold name tag (Charles) had come outside and was holding the door open for them.
“Are you here for the Lund memorial? It’s right this way.”
Oh. Right. The murder. The missing cubs. Our impending arrests. All problems unrelated to our imaginary relationship and future mythical children.
“Yes, thank you.” To David: “At least it won’t be incredibly awkward now you’ve gotten that out of your system.”
He gave her a look. “You’re joking, right?”
“Also, I think you might be a little bit nuts.”
“Ye
ah, well, I’d refute that except that it’s true.”
Once inside, they let their eyes adjust to the low lighting; even on the sunniest of days, funeral homes always seemed shrouded in gloom. As she’d surmised after a glance at the parking lot, not many people were there, fewer than twenty.
They stood in the small entryway, getting their bearings, and passed the guest book and a small bowl of tiny foil-wrapped candies.
“Probably inappropriate for us to sign, right?”
“Probably.”
“And don’t you dare go for any of that candy,” she added. “Put your sweet tooth in park.”
“Don’t worry. Mints. Yuck.”
There was no coffin, only an altar toward the front of the small nondenominational chapel on which there were several framed pictures of all sizes. The dark-clad mourners were all in mini-groups of two and three and four, murmuring to one another and shaking their heads. Annette caught several expected comments…
“Such a shame.”
“Was it quick? I hope it was quick.”
“His poor mother.”
“I really thought he’d turned it all around.”
…as well as some unexpected ones.
“Bound to happen.”
“Fucking loser.”
“I’ll bet his family has no idea how to feel about this.”
“You knew it was just a matter of time, but this. Yikes.”
Annette grabbed David’s hand, ignored his stifled hiss. “You’ve got a grip like an anaconda.”
She hauled him to the front of the chapel for a closer look at the pictures. “Oh, now this is interesting,” she said under her breath. And when David sucked in a breath, she knew he’d seen it, too.
“Annette?”
Greg Brennan had come up behind them with an older woman in tow. Literally in tow; he had her by her frail wrist and was pulling her toward them like a tugboat in a $2,000 suit.
She was spindly, her graying hair pulled back into a low bun, and her black suit was understated and elegant. Black tights, black flats, and a little black hat with black fingertip veil (which Annette had only seen in films, never in real life—classy!) completed her chic mourning wear. She and Lund had the same eyes, brown with a narrow, yellowish cast. She looked tired and infinitely crafty.
Bears Behaving Badly Page 22
