Scripted to Slay

by ACF Bookens

  I tried to recover from the whiplash of those five sentences by shaking my head slightly. Typically, "I saw you at my daughter's funeral" is followed by some obligatory kind word like "Thank you for coming" or "It was kind of you to be there." Not a query about whether it felt sufficiently morose as to be believable.

  I knew that the fake burial and such had been Tuck's idea, and I understood why he did it and why Mrs. Leicht agreed. But I didn't get why she'd be reveling in that deception, especially when the service had been, in fact, quite moving for me and for others, I expected. "It was a lovely service, even if it was a bit of a performance," I said with a small hope that maybe this brashness was a false front for grief.

  "That Davis fellow definitely bought it. Came over to the burial like he was going to put himself in the ground with Cassandra. Saw that Oriental lady, too, and she looked like she was believing my acting job, too. Maybe I should go into TV."

  I knew she was kidding, at least mostly, but I didn't know what to say. So instead, I pondered how she could live this long in a major city and not know that it was rude to call a person "Oriental." Or maybe she did know and didn't care. That was probably more like it. "Yes, Davis was very upset yesterday, and I don't think Effie knew your daughter personally. But she's from Boston, and when she heard, she wanted—"

  Mrs. Leicht cut me off. "Yeah, she wanted to pay her respects. The real funeral will be very small on Thursday up in Boston. Just me and Cassandra's cousins. Then, we'll have all this behind us." Her voice broke just a little, and I felt all the animosity that had been building in me dissipate a little. She was still a grieving mother.

  "I'm glad you get to take Cassandra home," I said and put my hand on her arm. "It'll be good that you can have her close."

  She met my eyes and said, "It will. But I can't get a headstone yet. Promised that sheriff of yours that I wouldn't even have a burial service in case someone was watching." She sighed. "But at least she'll be there."

  I squeezed her arm. "That will be good, and hopefully soon you can visit her."

  "Visit her? I'm not going to some cemetery to see a body. Nope. That's just not me." All tenderness that had crept into the room disappeared like smoke.

  "Oh, I see. I just thought . . ." I didn't even finish the thought. Clearly having Lizzie's, Cassandra's body back home in Boston was more of a proprietary gesture than an emotional one, and it wasn't worth my energy or emotion to try to understand or change that. So, I didn't. It didn’t feel worth it to try to even think through a perception that said a woman’s body needed to be one hundred percent "restored" to be its best but that this same body wasn’t a worthy place to remember the woman to whom it belonged. I took a long, deep breath.

  "Was there something I could do for you, Mrs. Leicht?" I really wanted this conversation to be done, so anything I could do to move us along was on the table. I even thought about putting my hand on her elbow and moving her slowly toward the door, but she spread her legs and settled her hips into the ground like she was about to do a wicked triangle pose in an impromptu yoga session. I tried to make the second deep breath I needed subtle.

  "Actually, yes. I wanted to ask you about the basset hound. Is he for sale?"

  I must have stared at her for thirty seconds before I got my mouth working. "No, no he's not." I wanted to leave it at that, but my curiosity wouldn't let me. "Why do you ask?"

  "Well, he's in the window with that other mutt. I thought maybe you were adopting out dogs or running a side business selling pure-breeds." She pointed toward the front window where Mayhem and Taco were sprawled like they were recovering from a doggie ultra-marathon.

  I smiled until I looked back at Mrs. Leicht's face and realized she was expecting me to say more. "Um, no, those are my dogs. Taco is the Basset Hound, and Mayhem is the Black Mouth Cur. Neither is for sale." I stopped myself before I said something about how Mayhem was not a mutt but a very special rescue who gave me companionship and loyalty, two things her daughter might have appreciated. A mutt, my butt.

  Mrs. Leicht looked only mildly disappointed, which told me all I needed to know about her as a potential dog owner, but fortunately, I was saved from further conversation along this line by the arrival of Cate, Lucas, and Sasquatch, their Scottish Terrier, who bounded into the front window with his buddies and immediately took their cue for body position. It looked like either a giant sleep over or like three dogs had collapsed together. I, for one, found it adorable.

  "He's not for sale either," I said wryly to Mrs. Leicht, intending the statement as a light joke, but she just sighed and headed toward the front door.

  "I'll be around until Tuesday when I'm riding back up with Cassandra," she said. "Maybe I'll make it to that roller rink thing you're having. Sounds like fun."

  I didn't have the energy to tell her we were sold out or to point out that if she thought her daughter wasn't "whole" without her arm, an event for a disability rights organization might not be a great place for her. I just smiled and waved as she left.

  * * *

  Cate and Lucas tracked Mrs. Leicht as she swung the front door open with a flourish before they turned to me and said, "Well, what was that all about?"

  "Apparently, Mrs. Leicht won't be visiting her daughter's grave, and she wants to buy Taco."

  Cate's mouth opened slightly with shock before she said, "Clearly, we need to sit down and get the whole story."

  The store was quiet, so we took a table in the cafe near my register in case I needed to tend to customers. Then, I gave them the whole day's run down.

  They, too, thought Davis's request was just outright weird and Mrs. Leicht's attitude downright cold, and I took comfort that my reactions weren't off-base. Then, I said, "What brings you in?"

  "Well, your mom asked me to make cupcakes for Wednesday, but she told me to just 'be creative,'" Lucas said.

  I groaned because I knew that was a trap that Lucas could probably not avoid. My mother was a perfectionist, so while she really, really wanted to allow people creative freedom, it was always better for everyone if she just said what she wanted. Sadly, she was also perfectionistic about her self-image, and her ideal self-image didn't impose itself on anyone. It was a brutal combo. "I'm so sorry," I said to Lucas. "Okay, let's see if we can figure this out together."

  We spent twenty minutes talking through flavors and numbers, and eventually settled on chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry with a few dozen "neon" thrown in just to keep with the roller skating theme. I also fell on my sword and offered to tell Mom the plan and take the brunt of her "only" wanting a few exotic flavors or only one flavor or a display that looked like a roller skate or whatever other kooky idea she had. I’d tell her this was a done deal.

  Lucas and Cate were grateful, and I was glad to do it because I had a plan. I needed to tell Mom and Dad about how things had gone with Daniel, but I didn't want to talk about it in detail. Now, I would tell them we broke up and Daniel was moving before totally derailing that conversation with the cupcake news. It was a win-win for everyone involved, well, except for Mom. But then, it probably wasn't possible to give her the perfect win, so we might as well not even try.

  "I do require two neon cupcakes with super-duper frosting as payment, though," I told Lucas as I walked him and Cate to the door.

  "Deal," he said and casually walked out the front door to leave Cate with me in private for a moment.

  "You okay?" she asked as she twisted a couple of my curls around her index finger. "It's been a long weekend for you."

  I sighed. "I am. I'm sad, but at peace, which is probably just the right way to feel. I have a long hot bath and a good book waiting for me at home."

  Cate hugged me and then said, "What book?"

  "This mystery about standard poodles. Totally fun." Laurien Berenson's books were always a great read, and this one was no different. I needed to let myself hide in a story that was fast-paced and frivolous just now.

  "Sounds perfect." Cate opened the door as she said,
"You'll call me if you get lonely, though, right?"

  I nodded, and I meant it. Mart and Symeon were going out tonight, and I'd assured her I was fine to be alone. I was pretty sure that was true, but I also knew how grief and loss can sneak up on you. So I really appreciated Cate's reminder.

  It turned out, though, that I was just fine. I ate a frozen pizza for dinner and shared my crusts with the dogs, opened a can of tuna for Aslan only to have her pretend to be above that until I left the room, and then I got into the tub with bubbles up to my chin and finished my book with a glass of white wine.

  By the time I climbed out, I was pruny and thoroughly relaxed, so I double-checked that the doors were locked, the lights out, and the animals watered. Then, I slipped under the covers and picked up Glittering Images by Susan Howatch. Marcus had raved about the series, so I'd snatched up the first one and was ready to tuck in. It was so good that I didn't get to sleep until eleven thirty, but the loss of sleep was so worth it.

  * * *

  Fortunately, my Basset alarm went off just before seven, or I might have just kept on sleeping . . . or reading. That book was so good. But two dogs needed to go out, and one cat needed to tell me that she had deigned to eat my tuna but had hated it. It's amazing what a tail can express.

  I put on the coffee and dropped two pieces of bread into the toaster before I picked up my phone. I had tried for a few months to not look at my phone first thing in the morning, committing instead to read in those in-between moments. But I found I couldn't really concentrate until I'd scanned my email to be sure there wasn't anything pressing.

  It was a good thing I scanned while the bread toasted because Tuck needed to see me before I opened the shop. I wondered why he hadn't texted, but then maybe he didn't want to disturb me. Like most single women I knew, I slept with my phone by my bed at night, and while I sometimes slept through the vibration of texts, sometimes I didn't. Tuck knew that I had notifications turned off for email, though, so he probably knew I'd get his request in plenty of time that way. But I needed to be sure he knew he could always text me about a case, even in the middle of the night.

  I blushed. "A case," I even thought of it like that, even though it wasn't mine. Still, despite my best efforts, people kept bringing me back in. I wondered if I should just succumb to the temptation and read some books on law enforcement and private investigation work. I made a note in my phone to look up some titles when I got to work.

  But first, I needed to eat, shower, and get on the road. I took the fastest shower that shampoo day allowed. My thick curls required a lot of soap and even more conditioner and then leave-in conditioner and then a quick finger wave to keep them tamed in their asymmetrical cut that bobbed just below my right eye. I took a little time to spin my blue streak to the front and then pulled on my Monday clothes.

  Mondays at the bookstore were pull days, the days we reviewed our inventory, figured out what hadn't sold and wasn't likely to, and then pulled the books to return to the publisher. I hated this job because I wanted to give every book and every author a chance, but it was a necessary task for fiscal responsibility. I always dressed casually on pull days because it was hard work if we had a lot of books to pull and because, subconsciously, I wanted the books we were sending back to feel comfortable with me, to trust me.

  I leashed up the dogs and pondered this tendency to anthropomorphize everything while we walked to town. I'd done this my whole life. I’d said good night to every one of my stuffed animals every night when I was a child and had a steady rotation of who got to sleep in my bed so that no one's feelings got hurt. I talked to my plants about how great it was that they were going to get to fan out in the other direction now that I'd turned them around at the window and apologized to the leaves now at the back.

  And the books. I told them I loved them. I thanked them for educating me. I wished them well on their return trip. To be sure, I wasn't talking to some version of the author that I connected to the books. No, it was the books themselves. When they came in with a cover that was creased, I told them I was sorry they had already been scarred by life, and when someone put a cup of coffee on an open page and left a ring, I set them near a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit so they could be reminded that being loved required some scars.

  The funny thing was that I wasn't embarrassed by this tendency. I was, however, curious why I had it, especially when I'd been raised by two parents who were profoundly loving but anything but sentimental. As I passed the shop and walked on to the police station, I wondered if I might have stumbled on to the explanation. Maybe my parents were a little too practical for my tender heart, and these practices of mine were about being sure the things I loved – and the people I loved – knew they were seen and appreciated.

  I was jarred out of my warm and fuzzy considerations by the sharp efficiency of the police station. It was a small force – just Tuck, two deputies, and the dispatcher – but this morning they were moving with the level of focus and energy that I saw in those police TV shows. I half expected Tuck to bang open his office door while demanding to see the file on the Bordo case. Instead, the dispatcher, Maude, just directed me toward his office. "They're waiting for you," she said with a smile.

  I knocked and was told to come in, and when I entered, I noticed a spread of photos on Tuck's desk. At first glance, they looked like something from a horror film – all these body parts jumbled together. But then, I noticed the metal in some of the images, the wiring in others. "Are those all prosthetics?"

  Effie, across the table, nodded. "Someone in Andover, Mass bought the contents of a storage locker at auction, and inside, she found these." She gestured toward the photos.

  I remembered this great novel I'd read called Self Storage, about a young woman who buys the contents of a storage unit and begins an intense journey propelled by a box she finds there. "Wow. Did the winner call the police or something?"

  "Right away. She was completely freaked out. Thought it was some strange sex thing, actually," Effie was grinning as she spoke. "We assured her it wasn't, paid the twenty-eight dollars she'd bid to win the unit, and collected our evidence."

  Tuck tapped a picture with his finger. "The serial numbers on some of these devices, Effie said, match the devices of the people who are missing."

  I looked at the FBI agent. "Was Lizzie's arm in there?"

  "It was. In great condition despite having just been tossed into a cardboard box." She frowned down at the pictures. "It just doesn't make sense. There must be several hundred thousand dollars' worth of hardware in there. Why would someone steal it and then just let the rental fee lapse?"

  Tuck shook his head. "Such a waste." He sat back in his chair. "At least now you can return the devices to their rightful owners."

  Something turned over in my stomach. "Will you give Lizzie's mother her arm?"

  Effie studied my face for a minute. "That would be standard, but why do you ask?"

  I looked down at the floor for a minute, trying to put words to the sinking feeling I had at that idea. "I don't know. Just feels off somehow. Wrong." I shrugged. "Maybe I'm just feeling defensive because of the way Mrs. Leicht talked about Lizzie's disability."

  "She's pretty callous, that's for sure. I figured it was because she was to blame for Lizzie's limb loss." Effie leaned forward to study the photos again.

  "Wait, Mrs. Leicht caused Lizzie to lose her arm?" I just now realized that I didn't know the story of Lizzie's amputation, and part of me felt appalled that I hadn't thought to ask that in light of Lizzie's murder but another small part, the part that was being shaped by all the reading I'd done about ableism was a little proud because I hadn't chosen to see Lizzie as her disability even enough to wonder about the story. Now, though, now I needed to know.

  Effie glanced up at me. "Technically yes, but it was a car accident. Her fault but really something that would have resulted in bumps and bruises on most days." She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. "But that day, a cement truck was co
ming through the intersection just after Mrs. Leicht clipped another car after running a red light. The truck creamed Lizzie's side of the car, and she had to be extracted by the jaws of life and without her arm."

  I let out a hard breath. "Man. Poor Lizzie."

  "And poor Mrs. Leicht," Tuck added. "Can you imagine if you had been driving and something like that happened to Mart or Cate?"

  I shook my head. "No, and they aren't even my daughters. How awful." For just a minute, I let myself think about what I would feel if one poor choice on my part resulted in a significant, life-altering accident for someone I loved. Maybe I would be like Mrs. Leicht and just want to be able to pretend it hadn't happened. It made more sense, now, why she was so adamant about finding Lizzie's arm. I still didn't agree with the idea that Lizzie needed it to be whole or complete, but I could get, more, why Mrs. Leicht had such an attachment to that device.

  Tuck spoke, and I pulled myself back to the conversation at hand. "Who owned the storage locker?"

  "A woman named Elizabeth Chabliss. We're looking into her, seeing where that leads us." Effie sat back and began to read a file.

  I studied the folder her file was in. "Elizabeth Chabliss" was written on sharpie on the tab, and the name caught my attention. I grabbed a pen and notebook from the end of the table and wrote out the name. Then, I wrote Liz, Lizzie . . . and Chablis. Lizzie Chablis. That couldn't be a coincidence, right?

  Sliding my notebook over toward Tuck, I said, "I may be wrong, but . . ."

  Tuck took one look at my notes and then smacked the table hard. "Doggone it, Harvey. How could we have missed that?"

  He pushed the notebook in front of Effie, and she let her mouth drop open. "Lizzie rented that locker."

  I raised my eyebrows and produced a fake smile. "Maybe?" I said through my teeth.