by Tracy Ellen
‘Ugh! I’ll say. Talk about moose knuckles, even sitting down,’ the sex kitten voice said in disgusted amusement.
I snorted back my laugh and Dickie glanced at me in confused fear, but Svettie stooped and butted in, “Okay, that’s enough. I’ll fill Anabel in on everything. You need to get on the road, Cherry, and get far away.” Her voice softened, the Selkie sounded choked up. “I’ll never forget you stuck around all week with me when you could have run off to be safe.”
“Ah, ducky, as if I’d cut out on my best mate.” Dickie’s abused red cheeks somehow still pinked up in a bashful blush while I rolled my eyes at their touching scene.
“Goodbye then, Dickie.” Svettie smiled and stepped back from the car.
“Au revoir,” Dickie corrected with his sly grin. He put a hand out to me and his grin turned into a cherubic glance full of entreaty, as if I hadn’t been knocking his block off two minutes ago. “I know you will help her get everything fixed.”
“You are an incredible twit that knows nothing,” I stated, sniffing disdainfully at his hand as I exited the car.
I smiled at a passerby while Svettie presented her back and whistled at the sky.
“But Anerbel,” Dickie implored, arms stretched in disbelief at my coldness. “You must help Svetlana because she is innocent and you are the only one we can turn to for help!”
A hand cupped to my ear, I said, “Oh, listen! Can you hear the tiny violins? It must be a symphony orchestra because with all your crap, I hear about thirty.” I shook my head at his sheer gall. “Besides, aren’t I the villain and you are the Fixer?”
More irrepressible than the energizer bunny with a new battery pack, Dickie burst into anxious giggles. “Honestly, you and Svetlana are a right pair of wicked witches.”
I narrowed my eyes at his word choice, but he was nervously checking the people in the street through his side mirror and didn’t notice.
‘Holy Moly, what was it, channel Anabel’s dreams and thoughts weekend?’ I griped.
‘Dibs on Glenda the Good Witch,’ the sex kitten voice purred. ‘Love the tiara.’
‘Me, too,’ the accountant voice admitted sheepishly, ‘and the sparkly dress.’
‘Gee, gay much?’ the mean mommy voice sniped impatiently. ‘Of course we get dibs on Glenda. We’re the good guys, you idiots!’
‘Un-cousin must be the wicked witch of the Midwest not East. The fake Russian would be East. Glenda is North. Makes you wonder the identity of the fourth witch of the South,’ the detective voice speculated.
That shut us all up.
Dickie took his eyes off the mirror and straightened his jacket while saying in an avuncular manner, “You know, I was a Fixer, and a damn fine one at that. I believe you two would be best girls, if you could forgive this little dustup.”
I spun my middle finger. “Forgive this, Webster.”
He shot me a hurt look. “Anerbel, there’s no call to be so nasty.” Then he dipped his double chin and bobbed his head sadly. “I wish I could stay and fix this, too, but a dead man can’t talk.” His pumpkin head didn’t stay bowed for long, and with a maudlin sigh, he sat up behind the wheel, revved the engine, and emoted theatrically, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the Heaven, etcetera, etcetera.” He saluted jauntily. “Right then ladies, I need to tootles before it’s open hunting season on Dickie Webster.” He actually tooted the horn. “Ta, and wish me well!”
Dickie hit the gas while Svettie waved and I stood back.
I turned to regard the tall, skinny woman who had stripped naked to entice Luke to duck her three weeks ago. I was debating whether to punch the Selkie in the solar plexus now or after she told me what I needed to know. I suppose Svettie could have been faking her lust for my boyfriend like she had her little-girl Russian lisp, but somehow I doubted it. The face that stared back sullenly with the pale skin and strange yellowish eyes was a face of a woman who would wear neon undies by choice, not a cold temptress on a secret mission.
My smile grew into alligator proportions as I raised my brows. “Am I to understand you’re in need of a favor from An-a-bel the Cow, Ms. Romanov?”
“Yes.” From her twisted grimace, it must have hurt spitting those three letters out between her tight lips.
Walking towards the jeep, I saw that many more people were leaving the festival and streaming down the sidewalk. “Now, now, Ms. Murderess, be careful your face doesn’t stick that way. It’s not your best look.”
I heard her angrily suck in her breath, but she doggedly tramped after me.
She said heatedly, “Obviously I didn’t murder Dickie, so…”
“What do you mean ‘obviously’?” I interrupted mockingly, raising my brows. “I don’t see any Dickie around here, do you? The cops sure wouldn’t, so there’s no ‘obviously’ about it.” Ignoring her expletives, I pointed the key fob at Lady Liberty to unlock the doors and said flatly, “Get in. You can tell me all about how innocent you are when we’re out of here,” I nodded toward the faces looking our way in curiosity at her loud voice, “unless you want someone to recognize you and call the police. By the way, loved the picture of you all over the news on TV. That feral cat look is so attractive.”
Face stony, she silently fumed, but didn’t move fast enough to suit me. So I shrugged, climbed in and started the engine. Svettie hurriedly jumped in, still glaring.
When she saw I had my phone in hand, she cried out, “Who are you calling?”
She fumbled at her jacket pocket for her gun.
Lifting Rita slightly from my lap, I got to say something I’ve always dreamed of saying, but never thought there would be a time that was apropos. It required super-cool timing, a big gun, the perfect squint, and a bad guy I wanted to crush.
I was a small town, used bookstore owner, so what were the odds?
I know, it was my lucky day. Yes, I agree my gun was on the sleek side and Svettie was a Selkie, but all the rest fell nicely into place.
“Do you feel lucky, punk?”
Svettie frowned in confusion while her hand fell to her lap as she nervously eyed Rita.
I frowned back. “Jesus, where did you grow up?” She opened her mouth and I cut her off with a sharp wave. “Oh, never mind. Shut up and buckle up. I’m not calling the cops; you made me late sending a text.” When she relaxed and shook back her long dark hair with a slight smile of relief, I added with an evil grin, “But then I’m hand-delivering you to the police’s doorstep, so let’s open that glove box and get you tied up with a nice bow, shall we?”
After I texted Luke, I politely texted my excuses to Darcy, explaining my surprise had got me carried away and I’d have to get with her another night.
Chapter XVII
“I Fought The Law” by Bobby Fuller Four
Sunday, 12/16
8:45 PM
I pressed the brass doorbell’s protruding black button with my elbow. A loud buzzing went off in the house that sounded like an old-fashioned telephone ringing nonstop. Everything about the house was from another era, as in the last century.
Holding the foil wrapped plate with care, I watched Svettie out of the corner of my eye. She stood docilely, palms clasped tightly in front as a result of the plastic handcuffs attached to both wrists.
She was glancing around the large, covered porch while we waited. Except for a Christmas wreath hanging on the door, there was no furniture or decorations out on the porch. No details, from the painted white wood siding to the black trimmed gothic-style windows to the hanging brass porch light fixture, missed her close inspection.
Over the buzzing of the doorbell, she said what I was thinking every time I visited, “What a beautiful old house.” The evergreen wreath was nose height to her and she sniffed appreciatively. “I’ve always wanted to live in a house like this in a small town like Northfield.”
Horrified as I was at the idea of seeing the Selkie slouch around the streets of my town on a regular basis, I merely shrugged no
nchalantly. “I’ll send you a Chamber of Commerce link to your women’s prison email account. I’m sure you’ll find a nice bungalow to live in when you get out of the slammer in twenty years or so.”
Was I wrong to be so particularly nasty and sarcastic tonight?
I agreed with Luke. We were done with people messing in our lives.
“You are such a…,” Svettie’s sentence, which no doubt was about to be complimentary of my kind offer, cut off when her attention was grabbed by the sound of heavy footsteps.
A deep voice growled in annoyance, “Stop ringing the damn doorbell.”
I moved to Svettie’s other side just as Chief Jack Banner swung open the beveled glass door.
“See, Svettie, I tried to tell you that was not the polite thing to do in America.” Shrugging with a weary sigh at the glowering police chief, I handed off the foil package before I walked past him into the foyer. “Jack Banner meet Svettie something or other, Public Enemy number 666. Sorry about the doorbell, but Svettie doesn’t know the meaning of polite manners. She must have been raised in outer Siberia or something.”
Svettie’s outraged cry of denial died out behind me. Suspicious at her abrupt silence, I paused in the unbuttoning of my jacket to turn back. Jack and the Selkie stood staring at one another in open appraisal.
Jack’s arms weren’t crossed due to the foil package, but he had his cop face on. The seal woman impersonating a human female had put on her coy, Victoria Secret angel expression and her slanted eyes were moving hungrily up and down the broad length of the man.
‘Oh, hell no!’ All the voices and I cried out at the same time.
Svettie may look a fright with her dark hair needing a good washing, her milky skin needing a good moisturizer, her chipped nails needing a good manicure, and her baggy clothes needing…the nearest garbage can, but she was still a relatively attractive woman with, I assumed, a functioning cha-cha. For most men, that was the only requirement needed when a woman ate them up with their eyes the way Svettie was devouring Jack.
“Uh, no problem.” He darted a swift glance at me and I raised my brows while he cleared his throat. “Come on in, Sweaty, so I can close the door before my nosy neighbor across the street sees you and calls the cops.”
Svettie’s sudden barking laugh at the chief’s idea of humor caused him to raise his brows slightly in return, which in Jack Banner body language lingo was the same as a normal man jumping back while screaming, “What the fuck was that?”
I covered up my laughter at his wary expression by hurriedly taking off my jacket. Taking the package back from Jack’s hands, I went towards the kitchen.
“I need a glass of water, so I’ll put this in your fridge.”
“Is that my meatloaf?” Jack called after me hopefully.
“Hey, you have my back, I have your stomach,” I responded over my shoulder.
“That’s my angel,” he said in satisfied approval while I cringed at that name.
Behind me in the foyer, Svettie said in her little girl voice, “Sir, I don’t know why An-a-bel calls me such names, but I am Svetlana, not Svettie or Sweaty.”
“Oh. Okay. Sorry,” Jack replied nonplussed, and I could feel the heat of his glare on my back. “You can’t let Bel’s cockamamie nicknames bother you or you’ll go nuts.”
“So speaks the voice of experience!” I called back, smiling at his disgruntled tone. The tone would have been a lot crankier had I not stopped at the apartment to retrieve his peace offering and show him the love.
“Here, let me get those off your wrist,” I heard Jack say while I got a glass from the cupboard in the kitchen.
The Selkie breathed, “Oh yes, sir, please take them off.” I heard a mewling cry. “They are so tight, they hurt.”
“For Christ’s sake, Junior,” Jack yelled down the hall to me, “I thought you said she didn’t murder anybody! Why is Svetlana handcuffed?”
“For my convenience, Sir Pushover. Be sure to rub her wrists and kiss the red marks like you do for all your prisoners,” I called back sweetly.
“She is always so mean to me,” Svettie whispered.
Jack agreed with a few pithy words that I was that way to everyone and for her to not take it personally. I could hear the swishing of her fur coat being removed while I drank a long gulp of cold water.
I searched the counter for a treat because the women in Northfield were always baking for the bachelor Chief, and scored with a tin of decorated sugar cookies. Cancer cookies, Stella would call them, as I thought of my niece fondly and inspected the bright colors of the frosting. Feeling reckless, I chose a red dye #5 star and an impossibly bright green Christmas tree before I walked back into the foyer. Munching on my contraband, I raised the glass of water to Svettie in tribute to her performance.
“I said Ms. Romanov didn’t kill Dickie Webster, Chief, not that she was innocent.” I set my glass down on a table to pass the green cookie to Svettie with a friendly smile. “Here you go. This reminded me of you.”
The Russian woman looked suspiciously from the Christmas tree in her hand to me. At Jack’s brusque nod of encouragement, she studied the cookie a bit longer before she took a dainty nibble without saying a word.
“See? No manners,” I mouthed at Jack, who looked back without expression. A definite glint of alertness grew in his eyes when I casually explained to him, “That cookie is the same color of the neon underwear Svettie was wearing the first night I met her when she was trying to seduce Luke Drake with the same tactics she’s using on you. The little girl lisp, the ‘Oh, she’s so mean to me’ call for help for the big, strong man to save her, the lies to get her way,” I shrugged again. “You know, Jack, the typical devious behavior from an untrustworthy woman, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“But what do you mean by, ‘trying to seduce Luke Drake’?” Svettie repeated and was the picture of flustered confusion. Then she put a hand to her cheek, arched her thin brows, and with a tiny Chiclets smile of rueful embarrassment towards Jack at my naiveté asked, “Oh my, is that what my naughty boss told you about our time together in his Chicago condo?” She mimicked my previous shrug. “An-a-bel, I’m sorry to hurt you when you’ve been so kind to help me tonight, but I’ve shared Luke’s bed for the last year. If anybody was trying to seduce another woman’s man when we met, it was you.”
I nodded slowly, eyes lowered in thought as I admired the twisted truth of her statements. I knew everything I needed to know from Svettie on the drive here and I’d waited long enough.
Taking a calming breath to center, I quickly struck Svettie in the solar plexus with the palm of my hand.
Luke had said the nice thing about hitting a person in the solar plexus was there were lots of nerves in that location, along with the diaphragm that helped them breathe. When struck, the diaphragm spasmed, the person can’t breathe, and there is often much pain.
My boyfriend was right. Instantaneously, Svettie doubled over in pain, gasping for breath. The green cookie dropped onto Jack’s spotless hardwood floor.
“Gee, I’m sorry to hurt you, too, witch.”
I had diligently practiced the sequence of moves Luke had taught me for the solar plexus strike. We hadn’t spent a lot of time together training on this offensive move yet because Svettie had butted into our lives to mess with my self-defense training schedule. However, it seemed fairly straightforward when I practiced it on my own every morning.
My sensei was right; you didn’t need to punch hard. There were two key components to a successful solar plexus strike. The first was to not telegraph in advance with your eyes the intent to hit. The second was to use the body’s momentum to push through to the opponent’s spine. You did this by stepping forward with one leg at the same time you dropped your weight behind the strike. There was no need to wind up, extend your arm, or jump off your feet--simply push through.
I smiled at the gasping Selkie and shook out my hand. Glancing over, Jack was staring at me with an unreadable expression
, but I bet the word “angel” was not on his mind.
“Hey, Chief Horn Dog, she threatened to shoot Stella tonight.”
I think Jack was actually starting to smile when he looked past me and his expression turned furtive.
“Anabel, Anabel, we’ve been broken up for a day and already you’re running around town beating up on the women in my life. Do I need to get Jack to put out a restraining order on you to keep you under control?” Luke’s reprimand was said in a taunting voice, but there was steel underneath.
“Geez, you’re such a hard man to get over, I wish I’d said yes to your marriage proposal instead of no,” I retorted. Without turning around, I crossed my arms over my breasts, happy I wore a black cashmere sweater so my traitorously erect nipples weren’t so obvious. “But it would be interesting to see if Jack would obey you.”
Jack shrugged at my questioning frown. “Sorry, but if you want my help, I had to call Drake in on this. Now, both of you cut the shit and play nice.” As Jack walked past me to go into the living room, he said in a low voice, “I warned you not to push him, but would you listen?”
Svettie still hadn’t straightened up to full height, and bent slightly over, she walked to Luke’s side. “Did you see her hit me, Luke? Oh my God, that hurt so much. I will be so bruised.”
Expecting to receive some sort of comfort, Svettie was surprised when Luke said coldly, “Go sit down in the living room, Svetlana. We need to hear what’s going on and I don’t have much time.”
“Luke,” she cried out, “You can’t be mad at me! I tried to warn you, but you never called back. I’ve been waiting to get in touch with you all week. This isn’t my fault!
Luke said, “That’s funny, I received one call last weekend with a confusing message and then nothing.”
“I’ve been hiding with Dickie from the police. My God, somebody is trying to kill us! I couldn’t call your phone because we didn’t know who can be trusted at DDL. What if your phone was bugged?” Holding her stomach, she glared over at me and spat venomously, “I heard today you broke up with this…this cunt, but I thought she could still get me to you.” In a frustrated voice, she cried, “All week, we’ve been waiting to catch her alone, so that we could talk and I can get my name cleared.”
