I looked up as he squatted down beside me and looked at him. He was carefully dabbing cream onto the cut below my eye, but stopped when I drew back.
“I know it stings, Stel, but it’s for your own good.” He was smiling, playing with me, even though I hadn’t done much to deserve it. Jake had forgiven me and moved on.
“Stel, you all right? You’re looking kind of out of it.” He held up three fingers. “How many do you see?” he asked.
“Jake, I love you.”
His smile grew just a bit wider. “I know,” he said, and went right back to dabbing cream on my face.
I pulled his hand away. “Did you hear me? I said I love you!”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I heard you. I know you do. I love you, too.”
When he moved to return to his first aid ministrations, I blocked his hand, grabbed his wrist and held on to it.
“Jake, I mean I love you a lot. Like, the whole way, with everything I have. I mean, I want us to be partners. You know, Valocchi and Carpenter Investigations?”
Jake nodded, but I saw a quick flash of something I couldn’t read in his eyes. “Partners, huh?”
“Yeah. What you said earlier, about me not trusting you and holding on to the past. You were right. I don’t want to be like that anymore. I trust you. I want you to be my partner.”
Jake frowned and pretended to examine my face closely. “Sure that fight didn’t knock some things loose in there? I mean, what made you change your mind?”
I shrugged. “I suppose I just thought about it. I mean, you were right. We were kids in high school. People grow up. Just because I’ve had a few bad relationships with jerks doesn’t mean you’re going to hurt me.”
Jake nodded, but he didn’t seem to be as excited about what I was telling him as I was. What was wrong? I started to ask but stopped when he began talking.
“I didn’t call you last night because I was in Washington with Shelia,” he said. “She thought I should talk to a couple of other people and tell them about our quasi-investigation in hopes that it would help with their attempts to figure out who killed Bitsy.”
I nodded, careful not to appear skeptical and waited for him to continue.
“She took me to see the agent investigating Bitsy’s death, who also was the team leader on Bitsy’s last project with the agency.”
“So Bitsy was still an operative?”
Jake smiled, leaned back and inspected his first aid work. “Beautiful. Now take these.” He opened a small white bottle of over the counter pain reliever, shook out two tiny caplets and handed me a glass of water to swallow them with before answering my question.
“Reading between the lines, I’d say yes. Those guys don’t give you anything unless they have to, and then only if it’s going to help them out.”
I ached all over and felt myself growing impatient. “So, what’s the bottom line here, Jake? What the hell is going on?”
“Okay, here’s what I was able to piece together with Shelia. David and Bitsy worked under the guise of being a young, diplomatic couple assigned to the embassy in Slovenia. David’s real mission was to develop a relationship with a Slovenian biochemist, in hopes of one day paving the way for him to leave Slovenia and come to the U.S. Apparently things went along as planned and the defection was in process when the scientist was killed.”
“Killed?”
Jake nodded. “It was a big loss, too. The guy was allegedly in the last stage of developing a biochemical weapon capable of affecting specific DNA targets.”
I was straining to make my brain work past the headache my attacker had given me, and the effort must have been clear to Jake because he explained in more detail.
“A weapon that targets a particular genetic code would be capable of hitting highly specified segments of the population, say for example, all people with blond hair or all Asians, or even something far more specific, like…”
“Like freckles?”
Jake nodded. “Yeah.”
“But the guy died, so why is Bitsy dead?”
Jake carefully folded the first-aid kit closed and sat down in the chair next to mine at the table.
“That’s where reading between the lines is necessary. I think the other agent was leaving out quite a bit. He said Bitsy got hit because the Slovenians were angry and wanted to send the U.S. a message not to interfere.”
“So, their guy dies trying to flee his country with our help, it failed and so Bitsy was payback?”
Jake nodded. “Something like that, only I don’t buy it. The Mafia might stoop to retaliation, but countries don’t do it that way.”
“So, what do you think happened? What’s the connection with Bitsy?”
Jake shrugged. “I’m not sure. I don’t think we have the big picture. It’s clear to me Bitsy felt she was in danger.”
“Well, Baby’s room has been trashed twice. Two men died in the parking lot of the nursing home, and if my little run-in was any indication, there seems to still be an interest in the place. I’d say they’re after Bitsy or something Bitsy had with her. You sure that DNA formula isn’t missing?”
Jake stood up and patted my shoulder gently. “Scramble your brains and you still come out thinking,” he said. “That’s exactly what I’m wondering, only I’m wondering why they were after Bitsy and not her husband.”
“Yeah, why aren’t they on David?”
“I’m sure they’re thinking along the same lines we are, only the agency has more resources at their disposal. It’ll shake out sooner or later. I’ll let Shelia know there was more activity out at Brookhaven and she’ll relay the message.” Jake was pulling on his jacket and ski cap as he spoke. When he’d finished, he turned back to me. “Ready?”
I frowned. “For what? Aren’t you going to call Shelia?”
“Yeah, later. Right now, it’s time to start driving.”
“Driving where?”
Jake shook his head softly. “To dinner. Aunt Lucy invited me. I wasn’t going to go, but since she said she had an announcement to make, I figured it was a command on her part and not a request.” He looked at his watch. “We’d better hustle. She said six.”
I rose up slowly and allowed Jake to help me back into my coat.
“I’ll drive,” he said, wrapping his arms around me from behind, his breath soft on my neck. “We can come back for your car later.”
We were halfway to my house before I asked my next question. “Jake, what about Baby? I mean, what are they doing to make sure no one hurts her?”
Jake hesitated. “I’ll admit your last tango over there was strange, but the two men in the parking lot can be explained.”
“How?”
We were turning onto my street. In a few moments we’d be inside with the others, eating pasta and trying to make up to Aunt Lucy for spying on her new boyfriend. I had to know Baby was not in danger.
“Stella, sometimes threats have to be neutralized and the results cleaned up later.”
“Meaning?” But I had a feeling I knew what he meant.
“Meaning maybe these two guys were responsible for what happened to Bitsy, and someone else handled it.”
“Like agency people?”
“Hopefully.”
“Okay,” I said, taking this into consideration. “Then why didn’t they leave after they took Bitsy out? And why was that girl still hanging around?”
Jake considered this. “Maybe they wanted to make sure there were no loose ends. Maybe they wanted to make sure Bitsy hadn’t talked to her grandma about anything, or left anything with the old gal. Before they could do that, they were eliminated.”
“And the girl? Why was she there today?”
Jake pulled into a parking space in front of my aunt’s brick row house and killed the engine.
“Well, I’ll admit, she doesn’t fit into the picture. Maybe she’s totally unrelated to this Bitsy deal. I mean, no one ever saw her in Baby’s room, did they? Maybe she doesn’t speak good English and got sp
ooked when you chased her.”
I looked at him and raised a skeptical eyebrow. “She was so scared she snuck back up on me in the woods and clocked me? Come on!”
“Well, maybe not, but I’m not certain that woman has anything to do with Bitsy’s grandmother. Baby Blankenship is fine. No one’s attempting to hurt her, not since they tossed her room and didn’t find what they wanted.” He looked at me and shook his head. “But you’re not going to leave it alone until you know for sure, huh?”
I smiled. “What can I say? Maybe I should’ve been a social worker. But I want to know what your buddies at the agency are going to do to protect her, and if they don’t do something, I will. I want to know who those guys were in the car and I want to know more about what Bitsy and David were doing before she suddenly decided to take a ‘vacation’ to New Jersey.”
“Fair enough,” Jake answered. “But let’s get this over with first.” He nodded toward Aunt Lucy’s back porch where Nina had come out to stand and beckon us in.
“Guess what?” Nina was hopping up and down on the balls of her feet and appeared ready to spring off the porch in her excitement.
“What?” I answered.
“I can’t tell you! Aunt Lucy has to be the one. Come on!”
Did I mention my cousin is a dingbat? I rolled my eyes at Jake and followed Nina into the kitchen. Please, I bargained silently, don’t let it be that she’s decided to marry that old geezer.
The kitchen had been restored to some semblance of order, and Aunt Lucy was in the process of directing everyone through the last-minute dinner preparations. When Jake and I arrived, Aunt Lucy barely turned long enough to nod and give Jake a quick smile.
“Come everyone! Mange! It’s time to eat!”
I watched as Spike and Nina carried steaming platters to the table, followed by Arnold, who carried a big jug of Uncle Benny’s Chianti. The impulse to rip it from his hands was childish, I knew, but also almost unstoppable.
Aunt Lucy gestured to the table impatiently. “Come on, you two, sit down!”
At least she didn’t give Arnold Uncle Benny’s place at the head of the table. Thankfully, she still allowed Lloyd to sit there.
“Tell them, Aunt Lucy! Tell Jake and Stella! I can’t stand it!” Nina cried.
Aunt Lucy no longer seemed inebriated, but her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were a little glassy.
“The blessing, cara! First, the blessing.”
Nina sighed. I saw Spike reach under the table to squeeze her hand and wished for a moment that Jake was holding on to me. We bowed our heads and then she did it. Aunt Lucy asked Arnold Koslovski to say the blessing.
I didn’t even listen. I was aware of him droning on in his flat, Midwestern-style accent, but I didn’t want to hear another man utter the words my uncle was supposed to say. It was a right reserved for the head of the household, not some schmuck interloper trying to get into my aunt’s pants.
“Now tell her!” Nina commanded.
Aunt Lucy looked at me and smiled. “I have wonderful news, Stella. We are about to add to the family!”
Don’t tell me this, I begged silently. No!
“My cara mia, Fang, she is going to have puppies! Soon!”
“What? How did that…happen?”
Everyone at the table watched me as I silently answered my own question. Beside me, Jake choked or else feigned choking to hide how hard he was laughing into his napkin. Lloyd, sitting at his place at the head of the table, barked once. When I looked, he was smiling like a proud father.
Fang was lying on a quilt that Aunt Lucy had prepared for her and placed beside the pantry door. Fang was most certainly not smiling. In fact, when I looked at her, she snarled.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked.
“Stella!” Aunt Lucy cried. “You don’t know what it’s like. Your feet swell. Your body is heavy with child. Is not so pleasant to be pregnant!”
“My Ethel,” Arnold said, quickly crossing himself. “She nearly died with our last child. It takes a toll,” he said. He stared down at the table, as if remembering something that made him quite sad. A moment later he looked up, smiling. “But the babies, they are a joyous occasion, eh?”
He grabbed up his wineglass and raised it, signaling the rest of us to do likewise.
“To new life and the next generations!” he cried. “May they be rich with love and good times!”
I tried to catch Nina’s eye, but she was too caught up in the celebratory moment. When we were once again seated, Spike looked around to make sure the others were occupied in conversation before leaning toward me and speaking.
“Listen, I went by the D.A’s office today to have lunch with a friend of mine and I picked up on some interesting gossip.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yeah. You know how the feds took over the crime-scene investigation of Bitsy’s death?” I nodded. “Well, at the time they said it was a national security matter and because of the terrorist threat, they were exercising their authority to intercede. Nobody was going to fight them on it. I mean, the feds have the ability to do a lot of forensic work we just can’t do at the local or even state level. Of course, the police had secured the scene and it was in the preliminary stages of being processed when the big boys arrived and took over.”
I nodded, wondering where Spike was heading with all of this.
“Well, anyway, when I arrived to pick up Barry for lunch, the entire floor was buzzing. Seems the feds are telling the locals that foul play is not suspected.”
“What?” I put my fork down and stared at her, aware that Jake had been listening just as intently from his place beside me.
Spike nodded. “Exactly. An accident. A defect in the car’s ignition system that caused it to explode.” She raised an eyebrow and slowly shook her head. “They must think we’re yokels up here or something. Barry said he made one phone call down to the lab and they were all over it. They have proof of accelerant use. Furthermore, one of the guys recovered some fibers and human hair samples that he thought might help in tracking the perpetrators.” Spike smiled. “They were a little naive in how they handled it, though. They called up the feds and offered their help, thinking maybe the big guys had merely overlooked something. The feds sent someone from the local office to get everything, and I do mean everything they had, and then called the county boys back a few hours later to say the evidence still supported their original findings. Now, that’s impossible! But of course, how can the county prove it? All their evidence is in federal custody!”
“Damn!” I whispered. The hair on my arms felt as if it were standing at attention. The temperature in the room seemed to have dropped ten degrees, and yet, across the table from where we huddled, the rest of the family laughed and toasted Fang and Lloyd’s good news.
“What about the nursing home killings?” Jake asked. “What’s happened with those?”
Spike’s expression tightened. “Very weird. They were having trouble getting an ID on either vic at first. They ran them on NCIC, AFIS, even Interpol and came back with nothing. Then, two hours later, someone runs the prints again, don’t ask me why, and they get two hits, right away, identifying them as Medicaid auditors from Washington. Barry said Chief Weller was starting to get real squirrelly about it all, saying Big Brother was fucking with the little man, now and threatening to call the Department of Homeland Security himself!” Spike shook her head. “You got to admit this is some weird stuff.”
Nina horned in on our conversation. “Are you guys talking about Bitsy? Is her grandmother all right? Did you find out who broke into her room?”
Spike, Jake and I must’ve looked like children caught with our hands in the cookie jar, because we all immediately stopped talking, jumped apart and shoved big forkfuls of pasta into our mouths. Spike at least nodded in Nina’s direction, but I could feel Aunt Lucy’s suspicious glance sweep over us like the searchlights from a prison guard tower.
Surely Nina didn�
�t think we’d discuss an on-going case with a stranger present? What was wrong with her?
Aunt Lucy turned to Arnold Koslovski and began explaining. “You remember Cynthia Blankenship’s sister, Belinda? They called her Baby because she was the youngest. I believe she was a few years behind us in school…”
Then, as I sat flabbergasted, Aunt Lucy began to tell him all the details of Baby’s case. I looked over at Nina. She must’ve caught Aunt Lucy up on the details of the case, and now Aunt Lucy had lost her mind and was blabbing it all to a virtual stranger.
“Actually, Nina,” I said, interrupting Aunt Lucy before she could go any further. “We weren’t talking about that at all. I was asking Spike about your house hunting.”
Nina and Spike froze, stricken, as my desperate brain caught up with my run-away mouth. Uh-oh. Aunt Lucy obviously hadn’t been told that Spike and Nina were thinking about moving out. In trying to keep one secret, I’d given away an even bigger one.
“What is this?” Aunt Lucy said. “House hunting?”
Nina’s face was scarlet, and she wouldn’t meet our aunt’s eye. It was Spike who jumped in to save her by taking the fall.
“No, Aunt Lucy, it was me. I was looking. I…well, you know, you didn’t bargain to have me living here when I moved back from California. I just thought maybe I should start looking. You know, I don’t want to be any more of an imposition than…”
“Imposition?” Aunt Lucy cried. “What is this? Perhaps you do not feel comfortable here? I have not provided you with—”
“It’s not that, Aunt Lucy,” Spike remonstrated smoothly. “I have never felt as welcomed or loved as I do in your home. I just thought it was time to establish my own household. I’m going to be staying in Glenn Ford permanently. I’ll have to find a place of my own some time.”
Arnold was wisely staying out of the dinner table drama, watching it unfold with the air of one who has lived through many such family growing pains and knows they will pass eventually. I was not so certain. After all, Aunt Lucy was in our family, not his.
What Stella Wants Page 11
