by Kelly Rey
"Our client says he's got a temper," Eunice said. "He jumped out of his pickup and started yelling at her because she stopped for a light. Can you imagine?"
The shiver prickled at the back of my neck. "What color pickup was it?"
Eunice consulted the legal pad. "Doesn't say. Is that important?"
Couldn't be. "Probably not," I said.
"To tell you the truth," she said, "I'm afraid of the Pine Barrens. I had an encounter with the Jersey Devil while I was camping, and I swore I'd never go back." She shuddered. "At least it's not Halloween. You don't go to the Pine Barrens on Halloween. All those old cemeteries and ghosts."
I looked up. "What kind of encounter?"
"I'll never forget it," she said. "I was fifteen at the time. Or no, maybe I was sixteen. No, wait, my sister Patty was sixteen. Or was that Kevin? Anyway, it happened while everyone else was asleep. My dad took us camping every year, even though we didn't want to go. But he'd never let us stay home. He was worried we'd throw a keg party while he was gone. Never mind that I was a straight C student."
"The Jersey Devil," I prompted.
She blinked. "Oh. Right. Well, I never could sleep on the ground. I mean, if God wanted us to sleep outside, he wouldn't have invented vinyl siding, right? But I don't think anyone else had the same problem, because everything was real quiet, except for the wind. You could hear it way up in the trees. It would have been kind of peaceful, if it wasn't for the flapping."
"The flapping?"
"His wings," she whispered. "I saw the shadow first, on the other side of the tent flap, and it was big. And it had this goat head with horns. And a forked tail." She'd gone pale.
"It was probably your brother, pulling a prank." My voice trembled.
She shook her head. "No way. Kevin was in the tent with my parents. He was still afraid of the dark then. Besides, he was only five feet tall. This thing was—" she rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling "—big."
I leaned forward, my work forgotten. "What did you do?"
"What could I do?" she said. "I screamed like an air-raid siren. I heard the wings flapping and saw the shadow as it lifted off the ground and heard it crash through the tree branches while it flew away." Her mouth twisted. "And then my dad came and yelled at me for scaring everyone. Isn't that rich. I scared them."
"Didn't you tell him what had happened?"
"Sure I did. And he told me I must have eaten too many hot dogs for dinner." She gazed morosely at the legal pad. "And now I have to go back there."
Yeah, I had to go back there, too, only now I got to do it with the details of her little bedtime story gnawing at my brain.
I opened a blank file to type my first Complaint. Wally was suing a jeans manufacturer because his client, Rory Rohrbacker, had managed to get his junk caught in the fly and had kept right on zipping. He was claiming pain and suffering along with substantial loss of income, now that he was unable, due to a bruised winky, to pass out tokens at an arcade four hours a day. For good measure, and to cast a wider net, Wally had added the zipper manufacturer and the department store chain that sold the jeans as codefendants.
You couldn't make this stuff up.
"Maybe you could go with me," Eunice said suddenly. "You're not like me. You're brave."
I didn't know where she'd gotten that impression, unless Webster's had changed the definition of brave. Now, Rory Rohrbacker, forging ahead despite a superficial winky bruise, that was bravery.
"I don't know," I said. "I have an awful lot of work to do here."
"That's okay," she said. "I have to go take some pictures at the mall today. Wally's client slipped and fell on some gelato in the food court. And I have to take pictures of the client's injuries tomorrow. She's in a full-body cast."
"From slipping on gelato?"
"Wally insisted on it," she said. "But we could go tomorrow."
"I don't think Howard would appreciate that," I said. "He likes me to be here during the workday."
"Oh. Howard. Right." Her mouth twisted while she thought. "How about Wednesday night? I don't really want to go at night, but we should be okay so long as we stick together."
Should be wasn't the kind of ironclad guarantee I would hope for.
"It won't take long," she assured me. "We'll just get a quick shot of him—I don't know— taking out the trash or walking the dog or something, then come right home."
That seemed harmless enough. Not much chance of being attacked by some giant, horned, goat-headed, fork-tailed flying beast while in the flower of our middle age.
Eunice brightened. "Maybe Maizy could come, too. She's pretty resourceful."
That was like saying Usain Bolt was pretty fast.
"Well…" I hesitated. "We are kind of involved in a case at the Pinelands Bar and Auditorium."
Her eyes got wide. "That place is still open? I thought it closed years ago, after that little incident they had."
"What incident?"
"Someone died there," she said. "I don't remember much about it, but everyone said the place was haunted after that. It used to look haunted."
"Still does," I said. "Was it a bar fight or something?"
She shook her head. "I heard it was murder. And that the killer was never caught." She lowered her voice. "They say that every summer, someone gets killed at the Pinelands."
"That's an urban legend," Missy Clark said. She stood in the doorway, wearing a traffic-stopping white pantsuit with sky-high heels, her hair full and loose down her back, a $600 rag & bone leather tote bag on her arm, and a white Leonetti's Bakery box in her hands. Because I could appreciate beauty as much as the next junk food addict, my eyes locked on to the box. Leonetti's had the best doughnuts and pastries in the tri-state area. "You don't really believe that, do you?" Missy asked.
"She's not wrong," I said. "Someone was killed there Friday night."
"Have you seen the Pinelands Bar?" Eunice asked. "There's something wrong with that place. Someone tried to burn it down a couple of years ago. It wouldn't even burn. And people report hearing strange noises coming from there at all hours."
"That's just the house band," Missy said. "I hear they're not very good."
"Does Howard have a depo today?" I asked her. Depo was legal slang for deposition, which was the civil litigation equivalent of a criminal interrogation, with all lawyers in a case present along with the plaintiff, defendant, expert or lay witness, and a court reporter to commit the testimony to written form.
Missy nodded. "You don't think he'd splurge on Leonetti's for us, do you?"
Eunice licked her lips. "Any chocolate frosted in there?"
"Yes." Missy shifted the box to her other side, farther from Eunice. "And you can't have any until Howard's done."
"There might not be any left by then," Eunice said.
"That's a chance you'll have to take," Missy said. She disappeared into the conference room to off-load.
Eunice ripped the top page off the legal pad, folded it into quarters, and stuffed it into her bag. "What do you think, Jamie? We can help each other. Remember, we had a hoot before, when that old guy with the naked David statue was killed."
Oxnard Thorpe, the Adult Diaper King of New Jersey. Maizy and I had found him facedown in his swimming pool on his wedding night. And hoot was hardly the word I'd use.
On the other hand, there was safety in numbers. Especially if Curt was one of the numbers. "Alright," I said. "We'll catch Howard's defendant in action Wednesday night. Sound good?"
"It'd sound better if we didn't have to go into the Pine Barrens to do it," Eunice said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
At six o'clock Tuesday night, while a Big Mac, fries, a chocolate milkshake, and I were sitting at a window table of the nearest McDonald's watching darkness shroud the world on the other side of the glass, Maizy dropped into the chair across from me. "I found Susan One. We should go talk to her."
I never knew whether Maizy followed me, had planted a GPS tracker on my car, or jus
t had a well-honed spidey-sense, but she was always able to find me. She was usually able to read my mind, too, and that was more disturbing.
I washed down a fry with a mouthful of milkshake. "I thought you were going to lose the blue hair."
"I will," she said, a little impatient. "I'm just giving it a proper mourning period first. We have to hurry."
"Can I finish my dinner first?"
She assessed the spread in front of me. "You call this dinner?"
"Not tonight, Maize," I said. "I had a rough afternoon." Wally had dumped an urgent Response to Request for Motion for Production on my desk at four thirty then offered his assistance by refusing to copy any documents for attachment. Apparently pushing a button was beneath Wally's pay grade.
"Me, too," she said. "Herbie Hairston sold the bazooka. And I had it on layaway."
I stared at her. "He offers layaway?"
She did a dismissive wave. "Unimportant. The point is we're going to have to buy a morning star instead if we want to protect ourselves. Herbie's having a sale on morning stars."
Who didn't like a sale. And "morning star" sounded kind of pleasant.
Except.
"Why do we need to protect ourselves from Susan One?" I asked.
"We don't," she said. "Probably. But it never hurts to be prepared." She pilfered a fry. "Although I doubt we need a medieval weapon to do it."
The last piece of Big Mac slipped from nerveless fingers. "Medieval weapon?"
Maizy grabbed it and snarfed it in seconds. "What'd you think I meant by 'morning star'?"
I did an I-dunno shrug.
Her fingers danced on her smartphone, and she stuck it in my face. My breath caught in my throat. Think that kiddie toy with the ball attached to the paddle, only on steroids and made of metal, with spikes.
"Why would you want one of those?" I asked her.
"Because Hank might be home," she said.
"I'm not going anywhere near that guy," I said. "Forget it. We can talk to Susan One at the next Virtual Waste concert."
"Be serious," she said. "You can't talk during a Virtual Waste concert. It's not done."
I rolled my eyes. "Because it's blasphemy?"
"Because it's loud," Maizy said. She put the phone on the table and stole another fry.
I pointed. "That's a nice phone. You didn't waste any time."
"Are you kidding?" she said. "I wasted twenty whole minutes downloading all my stuff from the cloud." She polished off my fries, thinking. "Maybe if we hurry, we can catch her at work," she said. "The store closes at eight. You're not busy, right?"
Well, I had planned on folding some socks, just as soon as I got around to washing them.
"Depends," I said. "Where's she work?"
"In the Pine Barrens," she said.
I shook my head. "I'm busy."
"You don't look busy," she said. "What, are you going to bed early or something?"
"No, Maizy," I said wearily. Suddenly I thought of Eunice. "Hey, do you remember Eunice Kublinski?"
"The fake lawyer Howard hired?" she said. "Sure, I remember her."
"She has to chase down a defendant in the Pines," I said. "And she doesn't want to go alone. She asked if we could help tomorrow night. We could talk to Susan One then."
"Cool," Maizy said. "But why doesn't she want to go alone? There's nothing scary down there unless you're afraid of trees and cedar water. And spiders and snakes. And the Jersey Devil."
"Bingo," I said. "She saw the Jersey Devil when she was a teenager."
"No way!" Her eyes lit up. "How'd that go?"
"It wasn't a date, Maize," I said. "It was traumatic."
"Why?" she asked. "Sounds pretty lucky to me. I'd like to see the Jersey Devil."
"There was nothing lucky about it," I said. "She's still afraid of the Pines."
"I hear that happens to old people," Maizy said. "They're afraid of everything. My Gramma is afraid of her bedroom slippers. And Cheez-Its."
I crumpled up the Big Mac wrapper and tossed it with the empty French fry sleeve on the plastic tray. "I'm going home."
"Maybe I can come over," she said. "They're having a Match Game marathon on GSN tonight. You can drive me home later." With great casualness, she studied her nails. Blue now, with a puffy white cloud motif and two dark storm clouds on her middle fingers. Hopefully that wasn't prophetic. "Or I can take your car. Whatever."
"Nice try," I said. "I'll drive you."
"I don't want to be in the way or anything," she said.
I unlocked the car, and we got in. "In the way of a Match Game marathon?"
"In the way of nicky-nack," she said. "I read that the endorphins released during nicky-nack can improve your mood. You seem a little tense."
"Thanks for the thought," I said. "But nicky-nack needs two people if you want to do it right."
"Not necessarily," she said. "I read that—"
"I'll stay tense," I said sharply.
She shrugged. "Whatever. They're your endorphins. You want to hoard them, that's your business. I just thought you might want to spend some quality time with Uncle Curt later, when he's done learning Virtual Waste songs. He's wearing a red shirt tonight."
I hesitated. Curt was dark and dangerous looking even in pink, but in red, he was killer hot. Red might just be worth letting Maizy take my car.
Wait.
"How do you know what he's wearing?" I asked. This was beginning to sound suspiciously like a setup.
"Because that's what I told him to wear," Maizy said. "And I told him to leave it unbuttoned, like on those book covers. Except the guys always have long hair on those covers, and Uncle Curt doesn't."
"He doesn't need it," I said, picturing Curt in a red shirt. And without a red shirt.
"Because he's smoldering, right?" she asked.
He sure was.
"This conversation's getting a little weird, Maize," I told her.
"Tell me about it," she said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
My endorphins didn't get released, Curt didn't wear red, and there was no Match Game marathon. Story of my life.
Wednesday night, we were back in Curt's Jeep, plus Eunice, cruising past a scenic landscape of trees and more trees and still more trees broken in sporadic patches by sluggish cedar water streams. Which, thanks to Maizy, now had me thinking of water moccasins, because worrying about the Jersey Devil apparently hadn't quite wrung all the anxiety out of me. I shrank into my seat, arms crossed, in mild pout mode. I'd rather be home watching summer reruns and eating ice cream. Curt kept glancing at me without saying anything. Typical behavior from the male of the species when he sensed displeasure in the female but was unsure of its cause.
Eunice smiled at her own reflection in the glass, bright and happy since she wasn't alone. Maizy's forehead rested against her window, lost in thought as she watched the landscape roll past.
Until we came to a familiar opening and Maizy reared back. "Stop the car! This is our chance!"
Curt braked, threw it in reverse, and backed up.
"This isn't the address," Eunice said, sounding confused.
"This is it, alright." Maizy pointed to the Max's sign. "And there's the pickup."
"How do you know?" Curt asked. "You said you didn't see it well enough to describe it."
"Call it a hunch," Maizy said.
"Not good enough," Curt said. He put the Jeep in gear.
Maizy rolled her eyes. "How many ginormous pickup trucks can there be around here?"
A horn blasted behind us, and a ginormous pickup truck roared past.
"Wasn't that odd," Eunice said.
She'd better get used to odd if she planned to spend time in Maizy's orbit.
"That wasn't him," Maizy said. "That sounded normal." She pressed her nose to the window. "We have to blow that horn. Then we'll know for sure."
I had a thought. "Does it have front end damage?"
"From pushing you?" Maizy said. "I doubt it. But I can't tell from here." Sh
e tapped Curt on the shoulder. "Come on, Uncle Curt. Five minutes."
Curt scanned the yard. "Doesn't look like Hank's there."
"Who's Hank?" Eunice asked. "Is he single?"
I felt my hackles rise. Whatever hackles were. "I don't want to do this," I said.
"You don't have to." Maizy bounced around in her seat. "If it's got an air horn, I'll find out who it belongs to from the registration, and we'll be on our way. Don't you want to know who tried to run us off the road? It might have been the person who killed Nicky D making his getaway."
"Why would he try to run us off the road if he was making his getaway?" I asked. "Why not just drive around us like everyone else does?"
"Maybe he didn't mean to," she said. "He could have had an incoming text or something. There's a lot of distracted driving going on out there." She glanced at Curt. "I hear."
I shook my head. "I was there. He meant to." Because he knew Maizy had seen him?
"Who's Nicky D?" Eunice asked. "Is he single?"
"He's dead," Maizy told her. "That's what happens when someone is killed."
"Then I'll stick with Hank," Eunice said.
Curt swung into Max's lot and backed into an open spot near the driveway. "Hurry up, Maize," he said. "If you set off an alarm, don't take the time to disable it. Just get back here."
"She can disable alarms?" Eunice asked.
Maizy snorted as she slipped out of the Jeep.
"She's very gifted," I told Eunice.
The pickup truck was parked nose first between a wood-paneled station wagon and an old Beetle. I couldn't tell from our distance in the dark whether anything hung from the mirror or sat on the dash. It was entirely possible that truck had been sitting there for days.
It was also possible it hadn't.
We watched as Maizy tried the door. It wouldn't open. When she glanced at us, Curt did a come-on-back gesture, which she promptly obeyed by pulling a pair of latex gloves from her pocket and going to work. A minute later, the door swung open.
