SHADOW DANCING

by Julie Mulhern

  “Yes.”

  He’d kept secrets from us, but not from Karma. Something inside me deflated. Deflated even as jealousy ran acid green in my veins. My father. He was my father. You’d think at almost forty I’d be past juvenile, emotional responses. Apparently not.

  “Your mother—”

  “You don’t have to explain.” Mother hadn’t wanted us to know.

  He could have overruled her.

  The sound of running water ended. Of course it did. Grace’s showers usually lasted longer than an episode of All in the Family. But now, when a private conversation with Daddy was all I wanted, she turned into Speedy Gonzales?

  I glanced at the ceiling. “Call her.”

  Daddy’s answering sigh belonged to a man who’d spent forty years married to a woman who could inspire fear in Attila the Hun. A sigh that belonged to a man who knew his wife wouldn’t be coming home without serious groveling. Although—

  “If Mother knew about Karma all along, why is she angry now?”

  “When Sylvia died—” he rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand “—losing her mother was hard on Karma. They were very close. I spent more time in California. Your mother contends I wasn’t around when you—you and Frances—needed me most.”

  “When we needed you most?” Daddy and his shoulder had been there when Henry died. He’d held my hand through the funeral. Stood next to me at the reception afterwards. He’d silenced Mother with a look when she said the flowers were too bright. He’d been there. “What do you mean? You were there.”

  “Not for all of them.”

  “All of them?”

  “The bodies, Elli. You found bodies when I was out of town. Your mother is traumatized by all the bodies.”

  Mother? Traumatized? “She’s not the one who finds them.” A small point, but an important one.

  “How would you feel if it was Grace who found all those bodies? Here. There. Everywhere.”

  A smart answer stalled at the tip of my tongue. How would I feel? “I’d worry myself sick,” I admitted.

  “And you think your mother is any different?”

  Of course she was different. She was Mother. Mother wasn’t upset because Daddy missed all those murders. She was livid because he spent too much time with Karma. Time that should be spent with his family in Kansas City.

  Besides, the whole argument was moot. I’d had a nice long stretch—months—of not finding bodies. Until Ray got himself murdered in my drive.

  “Mother may be worried about the bodies,” I conceded without meaning it. “But the ashes in the closet were what set her off. Why would she think you’d left Sylvia’s ashes in the hall closet?”

  Daddy took a moment and refilled his coffee mug. He also stirred the soup. “Sylvia was cremated and Karma wants me to be there when she releases the ashes.” He stirred again. “I think this is ready.”

  I fetched three plates and three bowls from the cabinet. “Do you mind if we eat in the kitchen?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” I grabbed spoons. “Crackers or baguette?”

  Daddy eyed the soup. “Baguette.”

  “I’ll get the loaf from the pantry.” I called up the stairs. “Grace, lunch is ready.”

  A moment later, the three of us were seated at the kitchen island with bowls of Aggie’s wonderful soup and crusty bread in front of us.

  “So?” Grace’s gaze traveled from me to Daddy. “Are you going to tell me?”

  Daddy’s soup spoon froze half-way to his mouth.

  Secrets weren’t doing our family any favors. I fixed Grace with a severe stare. “Family matters stay within the family. If we tell you, this goes no further. You don’t tell your friends. You don’t write it in your diary. You don’t whisper it in your dreams.”

  “Geez, Mom. You sound like Granna.”

  I winced. “Sometimes Granna gets things right.”

  “Fine. Okay. Vault.” She mimed locking her lips and throwing away the key.

  “Daddy? You want to tell her?”

  He shook his head. “This one’s on you.”

  “Before your grandparents were married, while your grandfather was away at college, he fell in love and—”

  “Wait.” Grace held up her hands and wrinkled her nose. “Are you saying?”

  “You have another aunt.”

  She sat for a moment, her expression stunned. Then an impish grin spread across her face. “No way.”

  “Way.”

  Grace gave us her best Diana Ross impression.

  Mother would not have appreciated Grace’s rendition of “Love Child.”

  Daddy simply choked on his soup.

  I handed him my napkin.

  Grace stopped singing. “Is she married? Does she have kids?”

  Daddy wiped soup from his chin. “Yes and yes.”

  “Cool.” At least Grace, unlike her mother, was unfazed by the prospect of unknown relatives. “Can I meet them?”

  Because we needed more dysfunction in our family. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  One could only imagine a family gathering that included Mother and Daddy’s illegitimate daughter. The mind boggled.

  We finished Aggie’s delicious soup without further discussion of Karma and without Grace reprising her Diana Ross impression.

  When we’d scraped the last drop from the bottom of our bowls, Grace disappeared.

  Daddy stood. “Elli, you’re fine here. I’m going home.”

  I hugged him. “Thanks for all your help today.”

  “Thank you for being so understanding about Karma.”

  He was giving me too much credit. I wasn’t understanding, I was overwhelmed. “Of course.” In our family, skeletons falling out of ash-filled closets should come as no surprise. “I love you, Daddy.”

  I let him out the front door, waved at the patrol officer parked in my driveway, and went upstairs to my studio.

  Painting—the restorative act of adding color to canvas—took up my afternoon.

  I descended the stairs when the afternoon’s murk ceded to darkness. “Grace,” I called. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yeah.”

  I tracked her down to the family room. She sat on the couch cocooned in a fuzzy blanket watching an afternoon movie on channel forty-one. “What are you watching?”

  “Some movie. There’s nothing on but sports.”

  “Do you want a pizza?”

  She nodded.

  So did Max.

  “Pepperoni or combo?”

  “Combo.”

  Max didn’t argue.

  I picked up the phone, dialed the number I knew by heart (calling for take-out was what I cooked best), ordered the pizza, then joined her on the couch.

  The movie she was watching was in black and white. A terrified woman was running from a house.

  “You know—” Grace’s gaze shifted from the frightened woman to me. A frown wrinkled her forehead (Grace’s, not the fleeing woman’s) “—I get the weirdest feeling this isn’t over.”

  I frowned too. I had the same feeling.

  Twenty-One

  Bad was too kind a word for Grace’s movie but we sat and watched and waited for the hero to save the heroine until six.

  “I can’t stand any more of this. How about we switch to 60 Minutes?” I asked.

  “Fine with me.” Grace exited her cocoon and and flipped the television dial.

  Morley Safer filled the screen.

  Ding dong.

  “That’ll be the pizza.” I hauled myself off the couch, stopped in the kitchen, and grabbed my billfold from my purse.

  The patrol office and a very nervous pizza guy waited on the front stoop.

  “You ordered pizza?” the officer asked. He was the approximate size of a m
ountain and his face was hewn from granite. No wonder the pizza guy was shifting from foot to foot and looking over his shoulder at his still-running car.

  “I did.” I paid the delivery man and he hurried down the drive to his car.

  “Are you hungry, officer?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You’re sure? We’ve got plenty. It’s combo.” The man could guard us just as effectively from inside the house as he could from his car.

  “I’m on duty, ma’am.”

  It wasn’t like I was offering him a tequila shot.

  The smell of hot tomato sauce and melted cheese wafting from the box made my mouth water. “Fine. Let me know if you change your mind or if you want hot coffee or a bathroom or—”

  “I’m on duty, ma’am.”

  Who was I to argue with hewn granite?

  I closed the door. With Max at my heels (the pizza smell had attracted him like a moth to a flame), I returned to the kitchen. Plates, napkins, and a knife to separate the slices—I stacked them all on top of the box. “Grace,” I called. “What do you want to drink?” I poured myself a glass of wine and waited for her answer.

  “Grace, honey—” louder this time “—do you want a drink?”

  Her response was garbled.

  I pulled a Tab from the fridge and added it to the top of the pizza box. If she wanted something else, she could get it herself. Then, with balancing skills I didn’t know I possessed, I centered the box on my left hand and grabbed the wine glass with my right.

  If I didn’t trip over Max (who was underfoot with a pizza-induced spring in his doggy steps), dinner was served.

  Together we two-stepped toward the family room.

  Until Max stopped dead in his tracks. Of course I tripped over him but the only casualty was sloshed wine.

  “Max,” I snapped. “What are you doing?”

  Max growled.

  “What is it, buddy?”

  I stepped around him and wished I hadn’t.

  A bedraggled—wet, dirty, with leaves in his hair—Bruce Petteway had joined Grace in the family room. Not just joined her. Seized her. The two stood in front of the television, facing me. Bruce held a gun. A gun he pressed against Grace’s ribcage.

  I didn’t drop the pizza. I didn’t drop the wine. Mainly because a strange been-there-done-that calm washed over me. I deposited dinner on my desk. “What are you doing, Bruce?”

  Next to me, Max growled. Deep in his throat. He’d been-there-done-that too.

  Bruce didn’t answer me.

  “How did you get in here?” I demanded.

  “The back door was unlocked.”

  I gave Grace the look. The look Mother usually saved for my worst transgressions—finding bodies, dating a homicide detective, wanting to meet my half-sister.

  Bruce settled his gaze on me. His irises were pinpricks and he seemed to vibrate like a human tuning rod. What kind of drugs was he on?

  “I’m sorry. I forgot to lock the door when I let Max in.”

  Max growled. Deeper this time. His lips drew back from his teeth. He looked truly fearsome.

  “Control your dog!” Bruce shifted the gun away from Grace and pointed it at Max.

  With Bruce’s gaze fixed on Max, I slipped the knife on the pizza box into my sleeve. What good was a kitchen knife against a gun? Not much, but the knife was all I had. I clutched the handle tightly. “Grace has nothing to do with this.”

  Grace made a tiny mewling sound in her throat.

  “Let her go. Please.”

  Bruce pointed the gun at Grace’s ribs again.

  I held up my free hand. I give up. You win. Let go of my daughter! I hadn’t seen this coming. Bruce, a killer? I hadn’t credited him with enough gumption. Quite clearly I’d been mistaken. Was he the real estate investor who’d killed Leesa? Had he killed Ray? Jane had described the man as bulky. Bruce was definitely bulkier than Ray. I was bulkier than Ray.

  I inched closer to the man with the gun and my daughter.

  “Stay where you are!”

  I froze. “Let Grace go. Please.”

  He shook his head. “It didn’t have to be this way.”

  “Mrs. Russell—” a strident voice carried from the kitchen “—I have had quite enough of you and the shenanigans in your house. They affect my property. Do you know some man just snuck through my backyard?” The voice grew louder and louder until Margaret Hamilton was framed by the doorway.

  Bruce shifted the gun’s aim from Grace to my next-door neighbor.

  I pulled out my knife.

  Max launched himself at the stranger in his house. Teeth bared. Hair raised in a ridge on his back. Max was a terrifying beast. Fortunately, the stranger he went for was Bruce and not Margaret.

  Bang!

  “Eeeeeeee!” High-pitched. Ear-splitting. Coming from Margaret or Bruce? Impossible to tell.

  Bruce was on his back with Max planted on his chest.

  Max’s gleaming teeth were less than a quarter-inch from Bruce’s throat.

  Margaret was on the floor clutching her upper arm.

  Grace was shaking, but not so much she couldn’t kick the gun Bruce had dropped under the couch.

  Bruce pushed at Max.

  Max bit him. Hard. In the fleshy part of his hand.

  Blood dripped onto Bruce’s face and he gasped. “Get him off! Get him off!” His voice was a falsetto.

  “I’m shot.” Margaret’s voice was a deep bass.

  I held up my knife. “Grace, go get that knucklehead cop.”

  Grace took off at a run.

  Margaret dragged herself off the floor. Blood welled through the fingers clasped on her arm.

  “Mrs. Hamilton, how badly are you hurt?”

  She firmed her chin and leveled her witchy gaze at Bruce—and Max. “Only a scratch thanks to that beast.”

  Max looked over his shoulder and grinned at her.

  “Don’t,” she warned, “think you’re forgiven for that squirrel.”

  Max grinned bigger.

  Bruce groaned.

  I had no sympathy. It was one thing to threaten me and something entirely different to threaten Grace. I pointed the knife at him.

  Officer Hewn rushed in, his steps slowing as he took in one shot next-door neighbor, a dog that might or might not be vicious, a woman with a knife, a man on the floor, and a fast-cooling pizza.

  “What happened?” he demanded.

  “He shot me.”

  “He grabbed me off the couch.”

  “He threatened my daughter.”

  Bark.

  “The dog attacked me.”

  We all spoke at the same time.

  The first cracks appeared in Officer Hewn’s hewn face. Worried cracks. How-do-I-explain-half-the-neighborhood-waltzing-through-the-back-door-while-I-sat-in-my-patrol-car cracks. He swallowed loud enough for us all to hear him. “I called this in. Detective Jones is on his way.”

  Thank God for small favors.

  “This is the man who’s been sitting in your driveway watching your house all day?” Margaret’s tone let us all know she wasn’t impressed.

  “It is.”

  Margaret Hamilton sniffed. “They would have been better served paying Marian Dixon.”

  My nosy, across-the-street neighbor had probably spent her afternoon and evening watching the man paid to watch my house. And she’d done it for free.

  Officer Hewn scowled at us. For about a half-second. “You’re shot?”

  “I already told you that.” Margaret sounded mightily put out. If I were Officer Hewn, I’d be worried she’d turn me into a rock. Or worse.

  “He shot you?” Office Hewn pointed at Bruce.

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s the gun?”

  “Under th
e couch.” Grace’s voice was small.

  For the first time, Officer Hewn seemed to notice the knife in my hand. “What are you doing with that?”

  “It’s for the pizza.” I dropped the knife on the box.

  Margaret Hamilton cackled.

  “Max, come here.”

  Max surveyed Officer Hewn, decided the police officer was up to the task of controlling Bruce, and came to my side.

  Bruce didn’t move. Max had knocked all the stuffing out of him.

  The whine of sirens reached us in the family room then came, “Ellison!” Anarchy’s voice boomed throughout my house.

  “Family room,” I called.

  The pound of running feet on hardwoods came next.

  Then Anarchy.

  He skidded to a stop in the doorway “You’re all right?”

  “I’m fine. Mrs. Hamilton has been shot.”

  Mrs. Hamilton leaned against the white wall and the wall had more color than she did. “He just grazed me.” Margaret Hamilton might fly a broom whenever the moon was full, but she was a brave woman.

  “You need to sit down.” I led her to a chair.

  She refused to sit. “Your upholstery.”

  “To hell with the upholstery. Sit down.”

  “An ambulance is on its way,” said Anarchy. “Grace?” His gaze landed on my daughter. “You’re all right?”

  She nodded.

  Anarchy shifted his gaze to Bruce and his eyes narrowed. His lips narrowed. His focus narrowed.

  Bruce shuddered.

  A uniformed officer appeared in the door. “The ambulance is here.”

  “I don’t need an ambulance,” Margaret objected. “I’m fine.”

  She’d been shot. In my home.

  “I’ll follow you. We’ll have the doctors look at you then I’ll drive you home.”

  She looked as if she meant to object. Strongly.

  “Please, Mrs. Hamilton,” said Grace. “I won’t be able to sleep unless I know you’re okay.”

  “You don’t need to follow me. I’ll catch a cab when they’re done with me.” She sounded brave and strong but I wasn’t buying it.

  “Are you kidding?” I asked. “You saved us.” Besides, it had been months since I’d been to the emergency room. If I didn’t put in an appearance soon, they might forget me.