She walked off, never having taken my order, and returned a few moments later with a thick white mug of coffee. She placed it on the table, then slid into the bench seat across from me.
“Men,” she said. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t rip their heads off!”
“Delia, Jake and I aren’t fighting,” I said.
Delia reached across the table and patted my arm sympathetically. She wore heavy gold rings on each finger, and her acrylic nails were airbrushed red with tiny white coffee mugs detailed into the center of each one.
“Sure, hon,” she said, affecting a soothing, motherly tone. “You just keep on believing that, but I’ve just been expecting him to show his true colors and run off with some trashy bimbo. Skunks can’t change their stripes any more than they can stop stinking!”
Frank, the night cook, peered out at the two of us from his kitchen pass-through window.
“Hey, Delia!” he shouted. “If you can tear yourself away from giving advice to the lovelorn, your order’s up and the gent’s burger is getting cold.”
The waitress scooted out of the booth and over to the window, giving Frank hell for disturbing her and loudly reassuring her customer at the counter that his food was indeed hot and fresh.
I watched her, thinking surely my life would be easier if I had her job. I tried to think of a place where I could move and start over on a diner waitress’s salary. It would have to be somewhere small, without a newspaper that could run my picture along with the headline, Wanted for the Cold-Blooded Killing of an Undercover CIA Agent. I was just sure tomorrow’s newspapers would all have that exact headline.
I was still plotting my “virtual” escape into anonymity when Spike arrived with a very tense-looking Jake right behind her. They slid into the seat across from me as Delia caught my eye and mouthed the words, “I told you so!”
I rolled my eyes at her and almost missed Spike’s report.
“You didn’t kill the guy,” she was saying. “But you came damned close. He’s in surgery now. I called Joe on my way over and he’s already heard. I’m afraid it’s going to get messy. The sedan’s got government plates and given the Bitsy and David Margolies angle, Joe felt he had to go ahead and contact the local FBI office.”
I groaned and buried my head in my hands. What else was going to go wrong?
I raised my head slowly and looked at Jake, remembering the grim expression on his face as he’d entered the diner.
“There’s more, isn’t there?” I said.
“Yeah. It’s Bitsy,” he answered. “She’s gone.”
Chapter 12
“Gone? What do you mean, gone?” I demanded, more in disbelief than for information. How had they found her? Or had they found her? And who were “they” anyway? The CIA? Slovenian agents sent to recover the stolen formula? Wasn’t that a little like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped? I could feel myself beginning to panic as I realized that we’d stumbled into something that was way beyond our abilities.
“I checked the pump house,” Jake continued. “It was empty and as far as I could tell, Bitsy never made it inside. I don’t think she would’ve left on her own. She needs our help too badly to risk going solo again.”
I pictured the ancient wooden structure sitting at the edge of the local skating lake, a shell of the building it had once been. The door was missing, so the place afforded no security if Bitsy had been attacked.
“No sign of a struggle?” I asked.
Jake shook his head. “It snowed last week. The area around the place is shaded by the roof overhang. I looked at the ground. Aside from worn tracks, there’s nothing. No sign to indicate Bitsy ran into any trouble.”
Spike was frowning. “Stella, you saw her making a beeline for the pump house and that was right before you ran approximately two blocks back to the office?” I nodded. “Could someone have gotten past you and found her? Could you have been followed?”
I hated to admit it. “Yeah, either one of those things could’ve happened. I didn’t see anyone, but hell, we were running. It was dark.”
Spike’s cell phone rang, playing an Indigo Girls song that signaled a call from Nina.
“Hey, sweetie,” Spike murmured. As she listened, the lines of her forehead creased into a concerned frown. “What? Okay. Okay, stay calm, honey. I’m on my way.” Spike listened a few more moments before responding. “No, they’re kind of tied up. They’ll come when they can.”
Delia approached the table carrying a small tray loaded down with my coffee, three glasses of ice water and a huge slab of chocolate cream pie. When she reached the booth, she carefully set the pie and coffee down in front of me, followed by a glass of water.
“There you go, hon,” she murmured.
“Hey, Delia, how you doin’?” Jake said.
My misguided, avenging angel wouldn’t even look at him. She set the remaining two glasses of water down with loud, sloshing bangs, turned to walk away and appeared to accidentally hit Jake in the side of the head with her tray.
“Ouch!” he yelped, surprised.
Delia smiled, satisfied she’d made her point and stalked off without another word.
Jake, still rubbing his head, looked at me, baffled. “What’s up with her?”
“For some reason known only to her, Delia’s decided that I’m upset because I’ve discovered you’re having an affair with Spike.”
“What?” Jake stared after the retreating Delia, and Spike, pausing in her conversation with Nina, lifted a puzzled eyebrow.
“Did I miss something?” she asked. “Did you say Jake and I are sleeping together?” Spike quickly spoke back into the phone. “No, honey! Of course not!” She listened a second, then added, “Yeah, like that’s gonna happen! Let me call you back, okay? Yes, baby, I’m coming!”
Spike closed the phone, slid it into her jacket pocket, and shook her head slowly. “Just what we need, a little more chaos! Nina said Arnie’s having a pretty bad spell of it and she’s worried about Aunt Lucy. I told her I’d be back as soon as we got things cleared up with the police.”
She nudged Jake to let her out of the booth, stood up and slowly buttoned her heavy coat in preparation to return to the cold night air.
“Rather than wait for them to finish up at the scene and come on down here, I think I’ll just slip around the corner and see if I can’t speed things along. All right?”
She didn’t wait for us to answer her. She turned to walk out, took a few steps, turned back around and gave Jake a sly, seductive grin. Delia, watching from her post beside the cash register, gasped audibly, and I realized Spike was creating “performance art” for the sole benefit of the suspicious waitress.
“Oh, and Jake, sweetie?” she called in a husky, come-hither voice.
“Yeah?”
Jake was practically salivating at the teasing, sexy, come-on Spike was affecting and seemed completely unaware that she was performing for an audience.
“In your dreams, baby!” Spike called and walked right out the diner door.
This pleased Delia no end and would have completely distracted me had the door not opened again and ushered in an icy blast of air and a new problem. I groaned under my breath, making Jake look over his shoulder just as Shelia Martin spotted her quarry and zeroed in on us.
“It just keeps getting better and better,” I muttered.
Shelia Martin walked like a jaguar, lean and muscular, tall with a waterfall of sleek black hair that slowly caressed her back and shoulders as she moved. But if Shelia’s body seemed like an invitation to sensual pleasure, her cold, ice-blue eyes would freeze the desire in any man stupid enough to approach her. Of course, the hands-off attitude evaporated with Jake. They had an obvious history and from the look on her face, even a few hours away from him would’ve been too long.
No, now stop that! I cautioned myself. He said that’s all in the past, and if you love him, you’ll trust him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Delia take off her apron and di
sappear into the kitchen. So much for allies and support, I thought glumly.
“Hello, Shelia,” I said, when she was finally standing beside our table. “I’d ask you to join us, but I know you’re busy.”
She ignored me and focused her attention on Jake. “I thought our agreement was you two were going to stay out of this until I had a chance to find out what was going on?” she said.
Jake appeared to be thinking it over, his brow furrowed into deep lines. “You know, that’s not how I remember it,” he said finally but he was smiling, trying to charm her.
“Jake, don’t play me,” she said, sliding into the booth beside him and turning to face him. “You’ve really stepped in it now.”
My self-appointed bodyguard was watching the tableau at my booth and seemed to have decided it was time for intervention. She swooped up a coffeepot and began bearing down on us, unseen by Jake and Shelia. For a second I was tempted to let Delia loose, but my conscience took over and visions of Delia, every bone in her ample body broken, lying on the floor beside the table took over and brought me to my senses.
“Delia!” I cried. “Look who’s here! Jake’s cousin, Larry.”
That stopped the erstwhile waitress in her tracks. “Larry?” she said, wrinkling her nose.
I nodded. “Well,” I said, smiling at Shelia, “I suppose it’s no longer Larry, is it, dear?”
Delia put the coffeepot down on the table, leaned in and inspected Shelia closely. “It’s a freaking miracle what they’re doing with medical science these days,” she said, shaking her head. “A freaking miracle! You want some coffee?”
Shelia could only nod.
When Delia walked off to get a mug, I explained. “For some unknown reason, Delia thinks Jake’s unfaithful to me. Can you believe it?” I said, smiling and reaching over to take Jake’s hand in mine. “So, sometimes she spills ice water or hot coffee on potential troublemakers. I was just trying to spare you.”
Shelia gave me an appraising once-over that let me know she didn’t believe a word of what I was saying before turning her attention back to Jake.
“The guy she attacked is a federal agent, all right, but no one seems to know what he was doing here. Are the cops right? Was the shop below your office being broken into when the alarm went off, or was there something more going on? Have you two found out any more about Bitsy Blankenship’s disappearance?”
I waited for Jake to launch into the full explanation but to my surprise, he didn’t.
“That’s right,” he said. “Stella and I were working on some paperwork when the alarm went off. I went out the back door. She took the inside stairs to the print shop. When she saw someone running away out on the street, she noticed the broken window and followed. As she was returning, she noticed a white sedan leaving and attempted to stop the man who then drew his gun. Stella’s actions were purely in self-defense.”
I tried not to let my facial expression give away what I was thinking. Jake’s account sounded like a police officer’s written report and he delivered it in the same matter-of-fact, impartial tone. He was lying to Shelia Martin! What in the hell did this mean?
Shelia’s expression never changed and if she suspected him of lying, she didn’t say. Instead she just sat there in silence, studying him. Jake, too wise to give her enough information to hang him, stayed equally quiet.
Delia’s return was almost a welcome relief.
“Here you go, hon,” she said, placing a mug of coffee in front of Shelia. “You want some pie, too, or are you watching that girlish figure of yours?”
“No, thanks,” Shelia murmured.
“I’d like some, Delia,” Jake said, but the waitress ignored him with a pointed little sniff and flounced back to her post by the kitchen window.
“She doesn’t really think that…” he began.
I rolled my eyes at him. “There’s just no accounting for the way some women think,” I said. I slid out of my bench seat, pulled my down jacket closed and smiled at the two “cousins.”
“If anyone wants me, I’ll be at home,” I announced. “It’s been a long day and suddenly I need a nice, hot shower, you know? I just feel like I’ve been rolling around in something nasty.” I smiled at Shelia. “Nice to see you again, Larry. Let’s do lunch sometime soon!”
I left them there and walked out into the winter evening, intending to return to the office. Instead, I found myself retracing my steps in the opposite direction, back to the half-frozen skating pond and the pump house. I circled the lonely wooden building and saw nothing more than Jake had reported. Bitsy was just gone.
I kept on walking, finishing my circuit around the pond and heading in the general direction of home while I mulled over the strange possibilities of Bitsy Blankenship’s predicament in an endless loop of questions that had no answers. An hour later I walked into Aunt Lucy’s house and found myself almost grateful for the familiar chaos of my Italian family.
Weasel, looking even thinner and more rodentlike in one of Aunt Lucy’s white aprons, stood at the stove stirring something in a pot while Spike, Nina and Jake sat at the kitchen table watching him and apparently critiquing his culinary skills.
“Did she tell you to add garlic salt?” Nina was asking. “All I heard her tell you was stand there and stir the pot. She didn’t say you should tamper with her recipe.”
Weasel, a wooden spoon in one hand and a spice jar in the other, had turned and was about to offer his rebuttal when I stepped in through the back door and provided the distraction he needed.
“Where have you been?” Jake said. The muscle in his jaw twitched, a sure indicator of his displeasure.
“Walking home.”
Nina exhaled loudly. “There, you see? I told you she was all right, Jake!” She turned back to me. “He thought foreign agents had snatched you up like they snatched Bitsy. I told him you were way smarter than some girl who can’t even go shopping at the mall without blowing her damned car up!”
Aunt Lucy appeared in the doorway looking very tired but still as peppery as always. She sniffed the air and frowned as she slowly walked across the room toward the stove. Weasel, seeing her, dropped his right hand behind his back and smiled nervously as she approached.
“Hi, um, ma’am,” he stammered.
“Where is the garlic?” she asked quietly. “I smell garlic.”
Weasel’s eyes grew wide. “Garlic?”
Aunt Lucy reached out, snatched his arm and with a quick tug pulled the offending bottle from his hand.
“You stir, you don’t tamper!” she said.
“Well, I just thought…” Weasel began.
Aunt Lucy stiffened. “That is exactly the problem,” she said. “You didn’t think and I don’t expect you to, because I am the cook and you are not!”
Mrs. Talluchi appeared at the top of the kitchen steps, a gnome in a vintage World War II nurse’s outfit.
“Ah!” she cried. “So you can’t do anything with him, either! I want to shoot him!”
Weasel, panicked, looked to the rest of us in a mute appeal for salvation.
“How about you take me downstairs to see our patient?” I said, pulling him away from the stove. “Nina can take over. I haven’t seen Baby all day. How is she?”
Weasel, happy to be anywhere but in between the two old ladies, instantly transformed himself back into an EMT. “BP’s slightly elevated but we’re watching it,” he said, cautiously cutting a wide path around Mrs. Talluchi as we started down into the basement. “She seems fairly alert and somewhat oriented to person but not place or time.”
I nodded, half paying attention to what he was saying and half listening out for the sound of Mrs. Talluchi’s footsteps following us. I wanted to see Baby by myself, without interference.
“Paint Bucket’s with her,” Weasel added. “She likes him. She thinks he’s her son. I wish she thought I was her son. Maybe then they wouldn’t keep sticking me with KP duty. I’m a trained medical technician,” he said, clearly irrita
ted at not having his value appreciated. “I can’t be stuck stirring a pot of chicken soup!”
“I’m sure this has been difficult for you,” I murmured, attempting to soothe his wounded ego. “I don’t know how you manage people so well. I think it’s a gift.”
Weasel’s scowl softened. “Aw, it isn’t that awful hard. I just wish they’d smoke a joint or something and loosen up! I’d be all twisted, too, if I didn’t smoke a doobie…”
“Weasel!” Paint Bucket emerged from behind the curtains of Baby’s makeshift hospital room and frowned, his finger held up to his lips in an exaggerated shushing gesture.
I waited until Paint Bucket reached us before speaking. “Is she sleeping?” I asked. “I was hoping I’d get to talk to her.”
How Baby mistook Paint Bucket for one of her off-spring was beyond me. He looked like a biker, with his long, red hair caught back in a ponytail and his Fu-Manchu mustache and goatee. If I hadn’t grown up with him and known him to be harmless, I would’ve crossed the street to avoid encountering him. The fact that Baby saw through the outward appearance and found the essential goodness that was Paint Bucket amazed me.
Bucket smiled. “You can go sit beside her for a while, if you want to. Me and Weasel could use a smoke break.”
“You won’t go too far off, will you? I mean, in case I need you.”
Paint Bucket nodded. “But listen, even if you couldn’t find us, Sylvia’s a right good nurse. I believe she can handle just about anything…unless she’s pissed off about something else. That’s when you see most of her delusions taking over. She’s batshit when she’s mad, I’ll tell you that right now!”
Weasel shuddered. “I’ll say!” He looked over his shoulder nervously. “Come on, Bucket, let’s get out of here before she catches us and makes us do something goofy again.”
I didn’t wait to hear what Sylvia Talluchi had done to Weasel that could possibly fall under his category of “goofy” behavior. I was too anxious to see Baby and know that she was all right. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why I felt she needed my protection but I wasn’t about to ignore the instinct driving me. It had been right too many times before.
What Stella Wants Page 19
