How could she be doing this? How could my aunt actually be making limoncello with a stranger in the home she had shared with my uncle for over fifty years? It was one thing to socialize, but to actually…I thought back to the conversation I’d overheard between them in Aunt Lucy’s bedroom. The one where she said, Oh, right there! You’re so close! Please! and shuddered. What was Aunt Lucy thinking?
I glanced around the room and saw they were all oblivious to this horrible realization. Everyone was fawning over Spike and laughing like partygoers. They were cooking and making liqueur as if there were nothing at all wrong…as if…as if they were…Why, they were! Not the dogs, of course, but the rest of them certainly were…every single one of them was drunk!
“It’s four o’clock in the afternoon,” I murmured. “How long has this been going on?”
Aunt Lucy couldn’t have heard me, but as if she sensed my disapproval, she turned around and smiled. It was Aunt Lucy’s warning smile.
“Ah, Stella, you’re home,” she said. Her cheeks were flushed and she fanned herself with her hand. “Come and meet my friend, Arnold Koslovski.”
I gave Lloyd a final pat on the head and crossed the room to meet the interloper.
“Hello,” I said cautiously.
Arnold Koslovski did not look like a self-made multimillionaire. He merely looked like someone’s grandfather. His eyes twinkled when he smiled and while I was certain he knew all about my surveillance of his earlier visit to my aunt’s house, he didn’t seem to harbor any unpleasant feelings toward me. He was about Uncle Benny’s height, perhaps an inch or two shorter, and equally round. While Uncle Benny had been quiet and less apt to become boisterous, Arnold Koslovski never met a stranger.
“Ah, Stella! Have some of this lemonade drink! It’s a little cocktail I invented for your aunt. We were just trying to come up with a name for it. What do you think?”
Nina handed him a squat tumbler filled with ice and watched, giggling, as the man opened a bottle labeled Everclear, and poured a shot into the glass, followed by a clear liquid poured from a measuring cup, lemon juice squeezed over the glass and topped with a splash of premium vodka. Potent, to say the least, as the Everclear was 190 proof grain alcohol.
“Na Zdrowie!” Arnold said, raising his glass.
Aunt Lucy, Nina and even Spike, followed suit, repeating the strange phrase as they took hearty swallows of their drinks.
“Go ahead, Stella!” Nina urged, weaving gently and bumping up against her girlfriend. “It’s really, really good!”
“Na Zdrowie!” Arnold repeated, holding his glass up and gesturing toward me.
“Huh?”
“It means, to your health, in Polish,” Spike explained. “Arnie’s family is Polish.”
“Arnold and I grew up together,” Aunt Lucy said. Her eyes were soft as she looked at the little man, obviously enamored by him. “He swore to watch after me, but who knew?” This time when she reached across the table, she did slap him, right upside the head like she always did with us.
Arnold shrugged and turned his attention to me. “What could I do? Love is love. Your aunt chose another, but I forgave her. What is love if it does not forgive?”
“That’s why he sent me such unusual flowers,” Aunt Lucy gushed. “They were little messages from his heart. They said what he could not say…then.”
“Did you know flowers all have symbolic meaning?” Nina said. “Like, code! Is that cool or what?”
“Tell my niece what the violets said,” Aunt Lucy urged Arnold.
The little man had the good grace to be blushing as he spoke. “Well, it was only a quote from Mark Twain, really.”
“Tell her!” Aunt Lucy urged.
Arnold shrugged again and looked at me apologetically. “It’s not that big a deal really. Mark Twain said, ‘Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.’”
“I crushed him,” Aunt Lucy explained simply and drained her glass. “I didn’t marry him and I crushed him.”
“But that was so long ago, Lucia,” Arnie murmured.
That was enough for me. I raised the glass to my lips and gulped half of it without stopping.
“Arnold brought me fresh lemons. He had them flown in from Sorrento!”
I raised the glass and drank again. It was surprisingly good, but it was not limoncello. That would take three months to make. It was a process my uncle supervised very carefully and he certainly didn’t try to make tomato gravy or drink cocktails while preparing it!
“And the tomatoes,” Aunt Lucy cried. “He had them flown in as well.”
Arnold squirmed a bit, uncomfortable, it seemed, with all the attention. “Well, the plane was already there and the tomatoes were ripe, so why not?”
Aunt Lucy smiled at me, happier than I’d seen her in months. “So, we will have gravy and more gravy!”
Before I could say another word, the phone rang and Aunt Lucy practically danced across the room to answer it. While Arnold tended to Spike’s finger by mixing her another drink, I pulled Nina aside.
“Did you find out about the hospice yet?” I whispered.
Nina shook her head, glancing at my aunt and her boyfriend before answering. “No, but look at him. He’s not dying, at least not anytime soon. I think you were right. It’s some kind of misunderstanding.”
Aunt Lucy was chattering away on the phone. “You must come for dinner,” she was saying. “I insist!” There was a pause as the person on the other end of the phone apparently declined the invitation. “Do I ask you for much?” Aunt Lucy said, pouring on the existential Catholic guilt that just seemed inbred into my family. “Jake, I have someone I want you to meet.”
My stomach lurched as my heart kicked into overdrive and I waited to hear the results of my aunt’s pestering. Behind me, Fang growled low in her throat as Lloyd attempted to approach her.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Nina said. “I think she hates him now. Maybe we shouldn’t have taken her away from the beach. Maybe she liked it there.”
Aunt Lucy said something to Jake and hung up, but I didn’t hear what it was because Arnold had rounded the table to stand next to Nina, giving his opinion and drowning out Aunt Lucy’s voice.
“I think I might have an idea,” he said.
Aunt Lucy was walking back toward us, watching Arnie and Nina tend to Fang. I couldn’t tell what Jake had said to her by her expression and didn’t get a chance to ask either. My pager went off just as Arnold stretched out his hand toward Fang, startling the dog who reacted by snapping at the little man.
“Arnold!” Aunt Lucy cried. “Marone! Your hand is bleeding!”
“Shh,” Arnold whispered. “She was frightened. It’s just a scratch.” As we watched, Arnold reached out to Fang again as she watched him with a wary eye. “There, girl,” he soothed. “It’s all right.”
When Fang allowed Arnold to pet her, there was an audible sigh of relief from everyone standing by and I turned away before my pager could go off again. I looked down at the display and felt a pang of disappointment. It was not Jake. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and punched in Marygrace Llewellen’s number, for the last time, I hoped.
“She wants to see you,” Marygrace said without preamble.
“Who?”
“Aw, come on, man! You know who. Baby. She wants to talk to you.”
I looked back over my shoulder as Arnold bent and began tenderly stroking Fang’s stomach. Fang had actually rolled over onto her back for the man. What was he, the Pied Piper?
“Marygrace, Baby doesn’t know who I am. She couldn’t have asked for me. Besides, her son-in-law paid me a kiss-off visit today. He made it clear our services weren’t needed.”
Marygrace exhaled a long gust of frustration. “Stella, this isn’t about that fancy-pants or Baby’s family or any of that. It’s about an old lady who’s upset and asking for the girl in the nun get-up—that’s what she calls you. Are you telling me y
ou’re gonna turn your back on her? Come on, man! She’s going home with those assholes, and then there won’t be anybody on her team. Just come talk to her, at least do that! You know Baby, she’ll forget by tomorrow, but at least today, while she’s on my watch, I can try and do what she wants. Stella, she wants to talk to you.”
Damn. “All right,” I said, giving in. It wasn’t as if I had pressing business elsewhere. “But Marygrace, that’s it. I’m not taking on any more wacko, lost-cause cases. We do it by the book, with the family’s approval, or I don’t do anything having to do with your people. Got it?”
“I owe you, Stel,” Marygrace said. “Now get your ass over here!”
Chapter 7
Baby had been crying. Her pale skin showcased the red-rimmed eyes and puffy, swollen nose. She was lying propped up against her pillows in bed, wearing a pink polyester gown that made her look like a fragile porcelain doll and fingering the necklace around her neck nervously. An empty box of tissues sat on the bedspread in front of her, its crumpled-up remains scattered everywhere.
“Hello,” she said when I walked in to see her. “I remember you.”
I smiled. “And I remember you.” I crossed the room and sat on the edge of the narrow hospital bed. “What’s wrong, Baby? You’ve been crying.”
“Have I?” Baby seemed a little disconcerted by this, but rallied. “I suppose I have.” She looked into my eyes, studying me for a long moment before speaking. “Do you know they want me to come live in their house?”
“Who?”
“This woman who said she’s my daughter. She’s not my daughter. Brenda is a little girl! I think that lady was my mother or maybe she was my sister.” Baby’s brow furrowed as she tried to grasp the situation. “I don’t know why they want me to come live with them.”
“Are you going?”
Baby gave a little sigh and shrugged. “I don’t have much choice, do I? I mean, I don’t have any money. I can’t work. I don’t even know what happened to my house on Freemont Street.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. I had no idea what choices Baby had left. She couldn’t care for herself or make decisions, not in her state, but did that mean her wishes carried no merit? It didn’t seem fair.
“Oh, don’t you worry, honey,” she said, patting my hand. “I can take care of my mother. She’s moody but I know how to handle her.” Baby’s worried expression returned. “I don’t think that’s why I wanted to see you though,” she said thoughtfully.
“So, you really did ask to see me?”
Baby smiled. “Of course, honey. I’m old but I still have a right to my own thoughts, don’t I?”
This made me laugh, and in turn she laughed.
“They certainly can’t take your thoughts, Baby,” I said.
But the frown was back and a moment later she reached out and took my hand. “Bitsy’s in terrible trouble,” she said softly. “She came to see me the other day. I hadn’t seen her in years, you know, but she looked just like her mother did at that age. She said, ‘Grandma, it’s me, Bitsy.’ So, I said ‘Child, I know who you are!’”
The ticking of the clock punctuated the silence between Baby’s thoughts. With each tiny click I felt the sense of urgency grow in Baby’s voice, as if she were racing to complete her thoughts while she still had a hold on them.
“She said she was just visiting. She even brought me a little present. But I knew something was wrong. I was listening. She said someone was after her.”
Baby fell silent, staring down at her hands and the tissue box in her lap.
“After her?” I prompted.
Baby looked up at me, startled. “Yes. But she said she had a friend who would help her, in New Jersey maybe, but I don’t know…”
Baby was losing focus. The energy it took to keep it all together was slowly ebbing away.
“Did she tell you who she needed to see?” I asked gently.
Baby shook her head, drew in a deep breath and looked up at me. The fear in her eyes took my breath. “They’re going to kill her,” she whispered. “Please! You’ve got to find her and bring her back. I can help her. I know I can. She told me so!”
“How, Baby?” I asked, feeling the urgency in her words and knowing I couldn’t tell her it was already too late for Bitsy. “How will you help her?”
Baby stared up at me, the desperation suddenly gone from her eyes, replaced by the more familiar confused expression. “Oh, I don’t know, honey,” she said. “I suppose we’ll just talk about the old times, and then later I’ll take her downtown to buy ice cream and a new necklace. Little girls like pretty things, you know.”
Baby leaned back against her pillows and closed her eyes. When I left she was snoring softly and I paused in the doorway of her room, watching the even rise and fall of her chest beneath the thin white coverlet. There was just something about Baby that made me feel protective. I wanted to keep her safe. I wanted to know that she was happy, not troubled by clouded worries that came and went, scaring her with their urgency and reminding her of how much she was losing with each passing day.
It was dinnertime at the nursing home. As I stepped out into the hallway from Baby’s room, two huge carts rolled by, pushed by attendants in netted caps. Other aides pushed wheelchairs or guided those more able to get around down the hallway toward the facility dining room. I stood there for a moment, watching and wondering if this was what it all came down to in the end. Would all of us one day wind up living in cramped rooms, wearing diapers and being tended to by bored workers instead of loving family?
Something about one of the women dispensing trays caught my attention. I turned to look at her retreating back as she carried food into a patient’s room. Slim, tall. I waited for her to come back out of the room so I could see her face, but I was already moving in her direction. It was the sucker-punching aide from the day before.
She came out of the room fast, expecting me, but this time I was ready for her.
“Stop!”
Aida started running with me close on her heels. I reached out to snatch her, fastened on to her scrub top and felt it rip out of my hand. She turned abruptly, stopped and shoved me back hard with a stiff-armed move that momentarily took my breath away. Then she was gone, off and running out the front door.
I cursed myself for not bringing a gun and gave chase. I caught up with her again as she was trying to get into a small black car. This time I got the first blow in. I spun her around, drew my fist back and drove it into her solar plexus. The rewarding gasp told me I had her attention, but she didn’t stay down. She straightened, lashed out with a kick, and the battle was on.
We were evenly matched in terms of fighting skills, but she was a good twenty pounds lighter than me. I didn’t see how she could take such a beating and still find the stamina to keep on going, but she seemed tireless. I swung out again, grazing her left temple, and she swore softly in a language I didn’t recognize.
“Who are you?” I asked. “What do you want? She’s an old lady.”
The girl’s gray eyes were completely devoid of any emotion. She stared at me, then, without seeming to move, struck out with her left leg. I went down momentarily, but it was enough for her to make it into her car. I scrambled, half on my feet as I heard the engine roar to life and lurch forward, right toward me.
There wasn’t time to get out of the way. Instead I threw myself forward and used the car’s momentum to help push me across and off the Mini Cooper’s hood. The little car sped out of the parking lot and was gone in an instant, blending in with the winter’s early nightfall.
I stood, bent over and gasping for breath for a few minutes before I was able to move to my own car. It took another few minutes before I felt able to think or drive. I felt as if I’d been run over. What in the hell was going on?
When I pulled up into the parking lot behind Jake’s building, I realized I’d been driving on instinct, homing in on the one person I knew to go to. Jake.
It took another five min
utes to crawl out of my car and struggle up the stairs to his apartment. Every nerve ending, joint, muscle and bone in my body ached. I only hoped she felt as bad as I did. When I reached Jake’s door, I stopped and leaned my head against the thick wooden frame. I wasn’t sure I even had the strength to knock on his door.
I brought one fist up and let it land with a weak thud against the solid surface. Fortunately, that was enough. I heard him approach the door cautiously, knew he was looking out through the peephole and heard the door swing open a moment later.
“Damn, babe, you look rough.”
He reached out, gently pulled me into him and led me inside his kitchen. “Let’s get a look at you.” He pushed me down into a chair and stepped back to survey the damage. “Well, I guess if you were worried about your black eye disappearing, you can rule that out. You’re probably going to have a fresh shiner on top of that one.”
He touched my cheek and I winced. “Yeah, nice scrape. The other guy look this bad too?”
“I certainly hope so,” I mumbled. “She got away.”
“No!” Jake feigned mock amazement. “Tell me it wasn’t that same girl that whipped your ass out in the woods.”
“I think she was working in the kitchen. When I found her, she was handing out trays.”
“What were you doing at the nursing home?”
I sighed. “Marygrace. She said Baby wanted to talk to me.”
Jake nodded, as if this made perfect sense to him. He walked out of the room and returned a short while later with his jumbo-size first-aid kit. He opened it on the kitchen table and appeared to be studying the contents.
“I’m thinking something in a basic white gauze and adhesive,” he said finally. “Something that says, ‘I’ve just had my ass kicked, but hey, I’m all right!’ What do you think?”
He was acting as if nothing at all were wrong between us. He was just being Jake—cocky, unconcerned and upbeat. And I loved him. The realization just appeared in my head, like a light switch flicking on or an e-mail jumping into my computer mailbox. There it was. Pure and simple. I loved Jake Carpenter. All the barriers I tried to erect hadn’t stopped the reality, so I supposed nothing would stop the pain if things didn’t work out, either. But that didn’t seem nearly as important to me now as it had earlier in the day.
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