by Rob Byrnes
9
It was early evening when Lisa Cochrane finally guided her rental car into the driveway in front of 455 Old Stone Fence Post Road.
“Good Lord, would you look at this place?” Mary Beth’s mouth was agape as she looked out the windshield. “What the hell?!”
From the backseat, Constance said, “What’s the problem? This place looks perfect.”
“Not the house, the lawn!” Mary Beth gestured at it. “Who takes care of it? The Three Stooges?”
The rental car was non-smoking, which didn’t stop Lisa from flicking the dying stub of her cigarette out the window. It landed in the ragged edging between the driveway and the lawn, which could have been described as freshly mown, although a more accurate term would have been freshly scalped.
“We’re talking about Lambert, Chase, and Farraday. That’s about as close to Moe, Curley, and Larry as we’re ever going to get.”
“I always thought of Lambert as more of a Shemp,” said Constance, which made Lisa laugh. Constance hadn’t met them until that morning, but she’d had an instant rapport with Lisa. Mary Beth, on the other hand…well, she still held out hope. It might take time, but she held out hope.
“This isn’t funny, you know,” said Mary Beth, which underscored the differences between the three women. “The lawn looks like crap.”
“Mmm-hmm,” muttered Constance.
Lisa caught her accompanying wink in the rearview mirror but kept her control. Instead of laughing, she turned off the ignition and popped the trunk, and soon they stood—wheeled luggage behind them—on the front porch. Chase opened the door moments after Lisa rang the bell.
“Hi, honeys, you’re home!”
With the greeting, he gave them a welcoming smile, which was answered when Mary Beth forced her hand into his chest and shoved him out of the way.
“You guys better not have taken all the good bedrooms. If you did, I’ll set your crap on fire and throw it out the fuckin’ window.”
Chase knew she wasn’t joking.
“Nice seeing you, too, Mary Beth,” he said as she passed him, walked into the foyer, and kept going.
“Sorry.” Lisa stood behind on the porch with Constance, taking in Mary Beth’s wake with a pained smile. She wiggled her shoulders. “We had a long drive.”
“Long,” Constance agreed, and she and Lisa began giggling again.
“I’ve made the drive a few times over the past couple of days, so I know what you mean. But at least there won’t be any more long-distance hauls in our immediate future.”
Constance shook her head. “Long as Mary Beth’s around, don’t bet that your long hauls are in the past.”
They found Mary Beth in the kitchen, where Farraday was rummaging through a cupboard.
“Better put the car in the garage,” he said, offering his own abrupt greeting. “Don’t leave it outside.”
It took Lisa a moment to realize what he meant. “It’s not stolen.”
“It’s not?”
“No. Grant told me to rent a car. Told me I’d be reimbursed.”
“Oh.” He thought about that. “Uh, if you don’t mind me asking…how much is he reimbursing you?”
Lisa stared him down. “Don’t worry about it, Farraday.” She held the stare as one hand dug through her purse, hunting for her cigarettes. “I’m bankrolling the job, so I think I’m allowed to spend some of the money. Unless you want me to pull out, that is.”
“Oh, no, no!”
She smiled. “I figured as much.”
“So anyway…” Farraday smiled crookedly, his version of pouring on the charm. “If the car is clean, how ’bout if I borrow it for a half hour.”
“Why?”
“I need to go to the supermarket.” He nodded in the general direction of the garage. “And I’d just as soon not…”
“Gotcha, Farraday.”
Mary Beth leaned against a wall, still tense and still holding her suitcase as if she weren’t sure she’d be staying. “He doesn’t mean the supermarket. He means the liquor store.”
Farraday didn’t bothering arguing. “Well, yeah, that, too. But first I have to go to the supermarket and pick up things for dinner. I’m making a leg of lamb and homemade mint jelly. Long as I can find all the ingredients, that is.”
Mary Beth looked at Farraday as if he’d just levitated. “Did you just say what I think you said? You can make a leg of lamb? And you make your own mint jelly?”
Farraday looked at her as if she’d asked if he could breathe. “Of course! I’m a chef. How come no one believes this?”
“Farraday’s a chef,” Chase said confidently as he stepped between them, even though he only had Farraday’s word to take for that and wasn’t sure it was quite enough.
“Long as I can find good lamb, that is. And marjoram to make the jelly. It ain’t the same without the marjoram.”
Lisa finally found her cigarettes at the bottom of the purse and pulled out the pack. “First, before anyone does anything, I want to smoke…”
“You just had one.” It was another thing Mary Beth wasn’t happy about. She tolerated it at home because Lisa paid the rent; on the road, though, she felt less restricted.
“And now…I’m going to have another.”
Still standing in the doorway, Constance stifled a laugh.
Farraday shrugged as Lisa dangled the cigarette between her index and middle fingers. “Long as it’s not in the kitchen, I don’t care where you smoke. See, part of the charm of homemade mint jelly is the aroma.”
“Thank you, Paul.” Lisa tossed a self-satisfied smile in Mary Beth’s direction, then returned her attention to Farraday. “Since you’re being such a gentleman about my bad habit, I’ll keep it away from your kitchen. And your minty aroma. Is there a basement?”
“You better believe it,” said Chase. “A big one. With a pool table…a bar…”
“Nothing says ‘place to smoke’ like a room with a pool table and bar, so lead the way.” They took a few steps toward the basement stairs when she thought to ask, “Hey, where’s Lambert?”
Chase nodded toward the kitchen ceiling. “Upstairs washing up. He sorta had a bad reaction to nature.”
They took a few more steps toward the stairs when Farraday interrupted. “Uh, Lisa?”
“Yeah?”
“Keys?”
Lisa shrugged and tossed the car keys on the kitchen table.
$ $ $
Farraday was gone and Lisa had returned to the kitchen by the time Grant Lambert finally descended from the upper floor, scratching his head distractedly. He barely acknowledged the new arrivals.
“I think I’m allergic to the bushes,” he said to no one in particular. “I’m all itchy. My eyes are watering. And I almost sneezed.”
Constance waited until he’d finished scratching his shoulder before asking, “What the hell were you doing in the bushes? You don’t know anything about gardening.”
“The neighbor lady said they had to be trimmed, so I trimmed them.”
Mary Beth shook her head. “You massacred those hedges? I thought we were just joking about the Three Stooges.” She turned to Lisa and Constance, looking for support, but the looks on their faces told her there was never any joke. “I shoulda known. You can’t even trim a hedge right, but we’re supposed to follow your plans to rob one of the biggest churches in the world. We’re gonna end up in Attica.”
“Not Attica,” said Constance. “That’s New York. In Virginia I think they send you to Wallens Ridge.”
“You’re not helping,” said Lisa, who then turned to Grant. “Why did the neighbor tell you to trim the hedges? Doesn’t the owner have a lawn service?”
“What’s a lawn service?”
“A service. A service that services lawns.” He gave her a blank look. She sighed. “You’ve got to get out of Jackson Heights more often.”
Grant shrugged. “I dunno. They looked okay to me. But she said if we didn’t cut the grass and fix the bushes,
the IHOP would be on our asses.”
“The IHOP?”
“The homeowners’ mob.”
Lisa thought about that for a moment then managed to translate. “Ah. You mean the H-O-A.”
“Yeah, that.”
She shook her head. “Sorry about that, Lambert. I didn’t think to ask.”
He scratched his forearm. “Well, hopefully we won’t have to do it again.”
“Once they see the yard,” said Mary Beth, “I think they’ll insist you don’t do it again.”
Grant sat at the kitchen table. “It doesn’t look too bad.”
“It looks like it’s been attacked by a herd of stampeding bison. Drunk stampeding bison. Wielding chainsaws. Rusty chainsaws…”
Lisa stopped her. “That’s enough, Mary Beth. Okay, our new neighbors seem to have control issues. Welcome to the suburbs.”
“Whatever. We’re not here to do yard work. We’re here to rob a church.” Grant looked at Lisa, then at Constance. He made a point not to look at Mary Beth. “You see the cross on your way through Nash Bog?”
Lisa nodded. “Can’t miss it.”
“You can even see it from our front window. Farraday eyeballed it and thinks it’s about three-eighths—”
“Three-sevenths.”
“Three-sevenths of a mile, although the way these streets weave around, there’s no direct route. Which means Chase and Constance and whoever else has to get inside the church will probably have to drive.”
Lisa’s frown—which had been playing at the corner of her lips since Mary Beth’s brief tirade—deepened with the realization that Grant had played her.
“And by that, you mean they’ll drive my rental, instead of the stolen car I’m sure you have stashed in the garage.” Grant shrugged an agreement. “Which is why you wanted me to rent a car instead of riding down with you.”
Grant scratched his nose. “Correct on all counts. You’re a very smart woman, which is why I like you.”
She squinted. “You like me because I have money.”
“That, too.” He turned to Mary Beth. “So, Mary Beth, on the ride down we sorta decided to use you on the job. Long as you’re here already.”
“And who decided that?”
“Me and Chase.” He glanced at his boyfriend, who looked away. “Mostly Chase, if you’re looking for someone to blame. Anyway, you, Chase, and Constance will become members of the church…”
She stopped him. “And how are we gonna explain that? The three of us just show up one day out of the blue?”
“Something like that,” said Grant. “It’s a church. They like it when people show up out of the blue and join. That’s sort of the point of being a church.”
“What’s the cover story?”
“Let’s not worry too much about a cover story,” he said. “We don’t need to overcomplicate things.”
Mary Beth was about to make the point that Grant Lambert always overcomplicated things, but stopped at the sound of Chase’s voice.
“Hold on!” Usually calm and soft-spoken, Chase was unexpectedly animated, which startled the other criminals in the kitchen. “What if Mary Beth and I pretend to be husband and wife?”
Mary Beth didn’t give that idea a chance to make an impression in her brain. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
The room fell silent, and every head turned to Grant, who sat in his chair at the table and tried very hard not to meet any of their stares.
Finally, he raised his head and said, “You know what? That’ll work.”
“No way!” Mary Beth crossed her arms across her chest and fell into a pout. “You cooked that up with Chase. That’s not fair!”
Grant ignored her. “It’s a conservative church, so who better to join as new parishioners than a happily married couple?”
“Lambert…” There was ice in Mary Beth’s voice.
But Lisa was now as enthusiastic as Grant. She got it, at least. “I think that’s a great idea.”
“Lisa!” Now Mary Beth’s attitude was edging past annoyance.
Chase looked at Mary Beth and leered, adding an exaggerated wink for good measure. “I like this plan, too, honey bunch.”
Mary Beth was having none of it. “I will kill all of you and bury your body parts in the backyard.”
And she might have, had the doorbell not opportunely rung. They looked around the kitchen at each other, no one volunteering, until the bell rang a second time.
Finally Lisa stood. Unhappiness was in her voice as she said, “I’ll get it.”
The woman at the front door was somewhere in her forties, no matter how hard she tried to hide it with Clairol and Botox, and exhaled a vague, stale aroma of white wine. Lisa received a perky smile.
“Mrs. Williams?”
Lisa cocked her head. “Pardon me?”
“Aren’t you Mrs. Williams?”
Lisa began to back into the foyer. “I’m afraid you have the wrong house.”
The woman put her hand on the door, neutralizing Lisa, although Lisa was unsure if that was to steady herself or to prevent it from being closed. And she now had an annoying singsong inflection in her voice.
“But I met Mr. Williams earlier, and I know it was this house.” When Lisa didn’t react, the Clairol blonde scrunched her face. “Mr. Williams? Mr. Grant Williams?”
Lisa’s face betrayed no reaction, but her thoughts were altogether different: Okay, Lambert, if you’re going to use a fake name, that’s something you should share with everyone else. It would make life much easier.
Lisa moved her head from the door and gave the woman a thin smile. “I’m sorry for the confusion. What threw me off is…is…” Her mouth took charge when her mind went blank. “I’m not Mrs. Williams.”
The blonde’s smile flickered, although the flesh around her mouth barely moved. “Then if you don’t mind me asking…”
“I’m Lisa, Mr. Williams’s, uh…” She blanked again for a moment until she realized a non-answer wouldn’t work. “I’m Mr. Williams’s sister-in-law.” She offered her hand and the blonde took it. “Mrs. Williams died in a tragic accident last year, so…” Lisa laughed nervously, which she realized probably seemed inappropriate. Still, she lifted her hands, palms stretched outward. “So…no more Mrs. Williams!”
“Oh, dear!” The woman clutched at her throat. If there had been pearls, or a necklace, or anything around her neck to grab except drum-tight flesh, the gesture might have worked. Instead, it looked practiced. “I’m so sorry to hear that.” She waited expectantly for Lisa to continue, but when it became clear that the story was over she finally introduced herself. “I’m Tish Fielding. From across the street. I asked Mr. Williams to tend to the yard earlier today, and well…” She looked around the lawn, shaking a nervous hand at the carnage, and quickly returned her gaze to Lisa. “Would it be possible for me to have a word with him?”
“I’ll get him.” Lisa smiled at the opportunity to close the door in Tish’s face, which she did, even as Tish tried to stop it, chipping one red nail in the process. As she walked back to the kitchen, she called out, “It’s for you, Williams.”
Grant, now nursing a beer at the kitchen table, looked up. “Oh…right. Sorry I forgot to clue you in.”
“The next time you give a neighbor a fake name, it’d be a good idea to share the information with your housemates.” She nudged a shoulder in the direction of the door. “You’d better talk to her and make her go away. Then we’re gonna figure out how we’re all supposed to be related to each other.”
Grant did as he was told. Tish was still waiting on the front porch, looking more than a little agitated.
“I’m sorry about the loss of your wife,” she said when he finally worked up the nerve to poke his head out the front door.
A quizzical expression played on the edge of his mouth, but he managed to stammer out, “Thank you.”
“If there’s anything you need…”
“Well, it was a long time ago, but thank you. I’
m fine.”
Tish reached out to stroke his shoulder, a gesture she hoped would be comforting, but then remembered it was him and pulled her hand back before she actually made physical contact.
“A year may seem like a long time, but it’s still recent. Those memories will keep coming back. If that happens, let me or Malcolm know. Dr. Bradean on August Morning Lane is a grief counselor, and I’m sure she can help.”
“Uh…thanks.”
“Anyway,” Tish squared her shoulders and continued, forcing chipperness into her voice, “the reason I’m here is because of the lawn.”
He showed a tiny bit of teeth between his lips. Grant Lambert wasn’t used to smiling, so he hoped it looked friendly. It didn’t.
“You wanted it neatened up, and we did it.”
“You did…well, something.” She took another look at the mutilated greenery. “Something I hope can be fixed.”
Grant surveyed his work. “Maybe the hedges could be a bit more even.”
“And the grass.”
“Maybe.”
“And I have no idea what happened to your flower beds, but…Well, what did happen to your flower beds?” She looked at petals littering the slate walkway that used to be attached to stems, destruction Chase had left behind earlier that afternoon.
He shrugged. “I don’t think the guy who owns this joint took good care of them.”
“Joint?”
“I mean, house.”
“You mean Mr. Yee? But Mr. Yee is an amateur horticulturist!”
“He’ll never be a professional if he keeps killing his flowers.” He looked up to see Farraday pulling the rental car into the driveway and knew it was time to wrap up their conversation. “Listen, I appreciate your concern about wanting the neighborhood to look nice. I’m afraid we’re just a bunch of city people who don’t have lawns, so maybe we’re a bit out of our league. But we’ll try harder. Maybe we’ll even get one of those service lawns.”
She stared at him. “Do you mean a lawn service?”
“Uh…yeah. That.”
“Thank you,” she said, but her attention was now on Farraday as he unloaded grocery bags from the trunk. She turned back to Grant. “My, there are certainly a lot of people living in this house.”
