by Lynn, JB
“She’s been on edge since the carbon monoxide thing,” I explained, waving it off. “Coffee?” I asked, jumping to my feet, hoping to change the direction of the conversation.
“No, thank you,” he said politely, watching my every movement. “What about you? Are you sleeping?”
I shrugged. “Are any of us sleeping well?”
“Loretta sleeps well,” Templeton supplied. He handed me a fresh plate of French toast. I eyed it hungrily, hoping I would get to eat this one.
“The police still haven’t tracked down who messed with the carbon monoxide detectors,” Griswald said slowly.
Avoiding making eye contact with him, I slid into my seat with my plate.
“You have some scary enemies,” Templeton told Griswald.
“You think they were after me?” the Marshal asked.
Templeton shrugged.
“They could have just as well been after you,” Griswald pointed out to the other man.
“I don’t have that kind of enemy,” Templeton said. “That plan required time, cunning, patience.”
“Maybe they were after your father,” Griswald mused, returning his attention to me.
I shrugged, focusing on cutting my French toast into little bite-sized squares.
“I thought poison was a woman’s thing,” Templeton interjected.
“It can be,” Griswald agreed. He stared off into space thoughtfully. I was just grateful that he hadn’t realized that the person that they were trying to kill, more than anybody else in the family anyway, was me. I forced the first forkful of breakfast into my mouth and made myself chew. I’d been looking forward to the food a few moments ago, but now, the talk of poisoning and suspects had ruined my appetite.
“I think I should have a talk with Archie,” Griswald said finally.
I didn’t respond. I knew my father had nothing to do with this particular trouble that was threatening the family, but it wasn’t like I could tell anybody that. What was I supposed to say? That Katie’s paternal aunt wished us all dead?
“What did that man do now?” Aunt Susan demanded to know as she walked in, having heard the last thing that Griswald had said.
“Nothing,” I said defensively. I knew she wasn’t the biggest fan of my dad, for good reason, but in this case, he really had nothing to do with what was going on.
She shook her head. “Wherever Archie Lee goes, there goes trouble.”
“Same could be said about his daughter,” Piss meowed from the corner.
I ignored her.
“French toast?” Templeton offered.
“No,” she said sternly. “Gluten is the food of the devil.”
“I thought that was pasta alfredo,” Templeton replied drily.
“Which contains gluten,” Susan countered testily. “That stuff will kill you.”
I shoveled another mouthful of bread into my mouth, thinking that something would kill us, but I doubted it would be this.
3
As soon as I’d finished eating, I jumped up from the table and brought my plate over to the dishwasher, eager to get away from Griswald’s prying eyes.
As though he understood my need for escape, Templeton pointed out, “Katie’s out there feeding that bird.”
“I’m going to check on her,” I said, shooting him a grateful look. Loretta’s fiancé acknowledged my appreciation with a slight nod.
As I opened the door to step outside, Piss raced past me. “Come on, sugar,” she meowed. “You need some fresh air.”
I followed the cat outside and watched for a moment as Katie threw small pieces of bread into the air as though she expected Mike, the crow, to catch them, like a seal with fish.
“Doesn’t really work like that, sweetie,” I called out.
“Aunt Maggie!” she squealed in delight, dropping the remainder of the bread on the ground and racing toward me at full speed.
I knelt down and caught her as she threw herself at me. Spinning us both in a circle, I hugged her to me tightly.
“Look what Mike gave me,” she said when I stopped twirling us. She held out her palm so that I could examine the paperclip that she held.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, just as much for the bird’s benefit as my niece’s.
The last time he’d brought her something shiny, it had been the copper wire that had been connected to the carbon monoxide detectors. If I’d paid closer attention to that, perhaps we wouldn’t have all come as close to dying as we had. I plucked it out of her hands and examined it closely, making sure that it wasn’t anything that I should be worried about.
“I’ll find something for you, too, Toots,” the crow cawed.
Putting Katie down, I smiled at him. “You don’t have to go to any trouble.”
“No trouble for my favorite girl,” he squawked back. If birds could wink, I’m pretty sure he would have done so.
“We’re going to the zoo,” Katie told me excitedly.
“That’s awesome,” I replied. “Make sure that you go visit the gorillas. Tell them I said hi.”
The gorillas had helped me on more than one occasion and I realized I owed them a visit. I’d have to buy some extra burritos for my after-hours break-in at the zoo. Gorillas really like burritos.
“Aunt Marlene says she’s going to take us clothes shopping,” Katie said with a scowl.
“You don’t want to go?”
“I hate clothes shopping,” she said, stamping her foot. In that moment, she sort of reminded me of God throwing his temper tantrum and I realized I’d left the lizard in his terrarium for a prolonged period of time. No doubt he would complain when I returned.
“But you’re a growing girl,” I told her. “You’re outgrowing your clothes. That’s why she’s going to take you.”
“I want you to take me,” she said, her lower lip trembling.
“Why me?” I asked, kneeling in front of her so that I could look into her eyes.
She shrugged.
I didn’t believe her. I had a distinct impression she had a good reason for asking. I grabbed her little hand in mine and gave it a squeeze. “You know you can tell me, right?”
“You’re the closest thing I have to a mom,” she said tearfully.
My breath caught in my throat and I pulled her close to me. “You know you have an entire family that loves you,” I told her.
“But I don’t have a mom or a dad,” she sniffled.
My heart ached for her. I gently put her away from me so that I could look into her sad face. “What brought this on?”
“Aunt Marlene is Alicia’s mom,” she said. “And I heard her telling Alicia that, pretty soon, Doc is going to be her new dad.”
I swallowed hard and blinked rapidly, trying not to cry as I gently brushed away the tears that dotted her cheeks. “I guess it’s pretty hard not to have a mom or dad.”
She nodded. “I want to go shopping with you, Aunt Maggie.”
“Okay, kiddo,” I promised. “I’ll take you clothes shopping. On one condition, you have to list everybody in this family who loves you.”
She nodded slowly and then began. “You, Aunt Marlene, Doc, Aunt Loretta, Aunt Leslie, Aunt Susan, Templeton, Uncle Larry, Herschel, and Armani,” she concluded.
“And me,” Piss purred, rubbing her head against the girl’s knee.
“Oh,” Katie said, revising her list. “And Piss and DeeDee and Godzilla and Benny and Matilda and Irma and Percy and Zippy.”
I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure that Zippy, Herschel’s little white dog, really loved anyone except my grandfather. “That makes you a pretty lucky girl, you know,” I told her. “Most people don’t have that many people who love them.”
She nodded.
“You forgot me,” Mike squawked at the top of his little bird lungs.
Startled, Katie and I both turned toward him.
“And Mike,” she yelled out. “Mike brings me the best treasures.”
Spreading his wings, the crow made a movem
ent. It looked like he was bowing.
“You’ll tell Aunt Marlene?” Katie requested.
I nodded. I wasn’t looking forward to explaining to my sister that our niece had overheard her saying that Doc was going to be Alicia’s new dad, but it couldn’t be helped. “I’ll tell the gorillas you said hi,” Katie said, and then ran into the kitchen without another word.
“Poor kid,” Piss murmured.
“We’re doing the best we can for her,” I said tiredly. It’s just that most of the time, I felt like my best wasn’t quite good enough.
4
Needing an escape from my family, I decided to take DeeDee for a walk. I hesitated about inviting God along, too, but felt it wouldn’t be right to leave him in his enclosure. He rode in my bra and the dog, who really needs some basic obedience training, pulled me along by her leash.
“You don’t have time for this Griswald job,” God told me after I mentioned the opportunity the U.S. Marshal was offering.
“I can’t afford to arouse Griswald’s suspicions by saying I can’t help him,” I countered. “What was I supposed to say, ‘Sorry, my schedule is filled with exacting revenge on our would-be murderer’?”
“True,” God agreed grudgingly. “But it’s unfortunate timing.”
“Alibi!” DeeDee barked.
I glanced at her, a creature whose sole sense of purpose was to sniff the same blade of grass twelve times before moving on. “You think Griswald will be my alibi?”
“Perfect,” she panted.
“The beast does have a point,” God said. “Of all your acquaintances, U.S. Marshal Lawrence Griswald would be an alibi no one would question.”
“But last time I checked, I couldn’t be two places at once,” I reminded them both. This whole vengeance thing seemed to be warping everyone’s thinking. It was sad that I was the one that seemed to be thinking clearest.
As we walked down the road, a car slowed beside us. I glanced at it, frowning.
“Oh yay,” God said sarcastically. “Another complication.”
Gino, the mobster Delveccio’s bodyguard, rolled down the window without stopping the car. “We need to talk.”
I nodded and smiled back at him. I liked Gino. I thought he liked me. But there was no answering grin on his face, let alone some flirtatious banter.
“Get in,” he said.
He stopped the car, I put DeeDee in the back, and I climbed into the front passenger seat.
“We’ve got a problem,” Gino said, pulling back onto the road.
“We?” I asked, waving my hand between the two of us. “Meaning you and me? Or the boss?”
“The boss,” he said. “Why? Is there a problem between us?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I thought things were pretty good between us.”
“Please, don’t start kissing again,” God muttered.
Gino raised his eyebrows as the squeaking sound of the lizard came from my chest but didn’t say anything.
It’s one of the things I like best about him. He accepts all my quirks.
“Let me guess,” I said. “The boss wants to see me.”
He shook his head and I saw that his knuckles turned white as he squeezed the steering wheel. “No. The boss does definitely not want to see you.”
I blinked, taken aback.
“You need to stay as far away from the boss as possible,” Gino drove home.
I frowned. That didn’t make any sense. There was no reason for Delveccio to be upset with me, at the moment. The last time I’d seen him, I’d helped save his grandson, Dominic.
“Sounds ominous,” God opined.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Like I said,” Gino replied. “We’ve got a problem. A very big problem.”
Gino’s a pretty cool, levelheaded guy, but I could have sworn I heard panic in his tone.
“What’s going on?” I asked, suddenly afraid that Daphne was not only going after my family, but, for some reason, the Delveccios.
“We’ve got a body,” Gino said.
“A body?”
He pulled off onto a side road, pulled the car to a stop, and put it into park. He twisted so that he could look me in the eye as we had the rest of our conversation. His gaze was dark with worry.
Panic welled up in me, cutting off my air supply. Something was really wrong. I gasped out, “What’s going on?”
“The boss was caught with a body.”
He stayed silent, letting that sink in. The mob boss had been caught with a body. That could not be a good thing.
“By whom?” I asked.
“The cops.”
“How did you let that happen?” I asked. After all, it’s Gino’s job to protect Delveccio.
He raised his hands defensively. “I’m not on duty twenty-four hours a day.”
“What happened?” I asked again.
He shrugged and looked away. “The cops stopped the car for a traffic violation,” he said. “Something bogus, like a brake light out or something.”
“He was driving himself?” For some reason, I didn’t imagine that Delveccio ever drove himself anywhere.
Gino shook his head. “No, Johnny was playing chauffeur. Boss thought he had nothing to worry about, so when the cop asked to look in his trunk, he decided to play the part of a fine upstanding citizen and allow the search.“
“There was a body in the trunk of his car and he didn’t know about it?” I guessed incredulously.
Gino nodded, grimacing.
“Who was it?”
He shrugged. “We have no idea.”
I frowned. “You have no idea whose body was in your boss’s trunk?”
“None.”
“That is a problem,” I agreed.
“This could be a disaster,” God opined from my bra.
“What did he say?” Gino asked curiously, staring at my chest.
“He said it could be a disaster,” I told him. Gino is the only person, besides Armani, who knows that I can talk to animals. Oh yeah, and my grandfather Herschel and brother Ian, but they don’t really count because they can talk to them, too.
“That’s why we need your help,” Gino said.
I leaned back in my seat, trying to put distance between us. “Me? How can I help?”
“We need you to figure out who the body belongs to before the cops do,” Gino said.
“Me?” I asked. I’m not even a particularly good part-time assassin, and I’m pretty sure I’m a terrible investigator. “How?”
Gino shrugged. “I don’t know, but the boss is convinced that you’ll be able to.”
5
“Priorities!” God boomed.
“Priorities!” DeeDee agreed, barking loudly.
I doubted that the dog even knew what the lizard was talking about. But I did.
“Your first priority has to be to protect your family,” God lectured.
“I know,” I told him. “I’m working on it.”
“But you’re not focused,” he warned. “Now, you’re going to be looking into finding out who the body found in Delveccio’s trunk belonged to and doing Griswald’s job.”
“And which one of those do you think I should just say I don’t have time for?” I asked. “I can’t afford to make Griswald suspicious, and I can’t risk not supporting Delveccio. The last thing I need is for an angry mob boss to turn on me.”
Piss inserted herself into the conversation. “I think you have to do them all,” she said.
“That’s not helpful,” God argued.
The lizard, who was riding on my shoulder, was really driving me crazy that he was unable to understand my concerns.
“She’s right. I’m just going to have to do them all,” I said. “You and DeeDee,” I asked the cat, “can help me with keeping the family safe, right?”
“Of course, sugar,” she purred.
“Protect!” DeeDee panted.
“Hopefully, the thing with Griswald won’t be too complicat
ed or take too much time,” I said. “While I’m working on that, I’ll come up with a plan to deal with Daphne.”
“And how do you expect to figure out the identity of the headless and handless body found in the mobster’s car?” God asked.
I shrugged. I hadn’t figured that one out yet.
“Patrick,” DeeDee barked.
I looked around to see if the redhead was in the vicinity, but didn’t see any other cars or people nearby.
“Patrick help will,” DeeDee insisted.
“The grammar-challenged bag of fur has a point,” God acknowledged. “He is a real detective, after all.”
I nodded slowly, wondering why Gino hadn’t gone to Patrick Mulligan instead of me to help figure out who the body was.
“I’ll ask him,” I told DeeDee. “That was a very good idea.”
The dog pranced happily, not one to receive praise very often for her cognitive abilities. We’d almost gotten back to the compound, and Piss raced off to the barn to talk to Irma.
My sister Marlene, her fiancé Doc, and my nieces, Katie and Alicia, were piling into the car.
“Positive you don’t want to go to the zoo with us?” Marlene invited.
I shook my head. “I’ve got some other things I have to do, but thanks.” I waved to the two little girls who looked excited about their outing. “Have a great time and don’t forget to say hello to the gorillas for me.”
The kids waved back and began to giggle.
“Do you have a sec?” I asked Marlene quietly. Nodding, she walked over to me, leaving Doc to make sure that the kids were buckled properly into their car seats.
“Katie asked me to take her clothes shopping,” I said carefully, unsure of how Marlene would react.
She sighed with relief, catching me off guard. “Oh good. Trying to get the two of them to try on clothes at the same time would have been like wrangling cats.”
“So, you’re good with it?”
Marlene nodded. “I’m great with it.”
I gave her a quick, impulsive hug. “You’re fantastic with them, you know that, don’t you?”
