by Anne R. Tan
Gusty Lovers and Cadavers
A Raina Sun Mystery
Anne R. Tan
Contents
COPYRIGHT
BACK COVER
DEDICATION
1. BABY ON BOARD
2. LET’S DANCE
3. BRINGING SEXY BACK
4. MONEY, COME AWAY
5. DRAMA QUEEN
6. TAKE MY KIDNEY
7. SMALL TOWN U.S.A.
8. LIBEL AND SLANDER
9. KISSY KISS, YUCKY POO
10. EASY PEASY
11. THAT’S SOME FUNKY PERFUME
12. IT’S A CURSE
13. JUMP OVER THE FIRE
14. A WARNING
15. PIGS COULD FLY
16. OVER MY DEAD BODY
17. DELUSIONS
18. NEW RAIN
19. CHRISTMAS BLUES
20. A SIMPLE MAN
21. THE COVER-UP
22. THE ROOF IS ON FIRE
23. LIGHTS OUT
24. TIME TO REDECORATE
THANK YOU
RAINING MEN AND CORPSES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Copyright © 2015 by Anne R. Tan
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Anne R. Tan
www.annertan.com
Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Gusty Lovers and Cadavers
Graduate student Raina Sun thought she knew what she was getting herself into when she volunteered to take the new foreign exchange student shopping on the last weekend before Christmas. But between a riot for the last hot toy of the season and an abandoned baby, the holiday is a season for mayhem, and sometimes it doesn’t pay to be a Good Samaritan.
Raina wants to reunite the infant with his family, but calling the mysterious phone number in the diaper bag leads to more questions than answers. A strange man claims to be the child’s father, and his alleged mother turns up dead.
The local police are more interested in keeping the town’s good name out of international news than considering if there’s foul play. And to make matters worse, she has less than a week to find his real parents before the FBI takes over the case.
Raina summons her sleuthing skills to protect this baby and soon discovers everyone has a few skeletons in their closets. With her pimp-cane-toting grandma, she faces an ex-boyfriend bringing sexy back as well as a murderer determined to hide the truth.
For readers who like fun cozy mysteries, quirky characters, and a dash of humor.
Book 1, Raining Men and Corpses, is available for the special price of $0.99 to help celebrate the launch of this book.
To Rhys,
for making me understand the men in my life
1
BABY ON BOARD
Raina was smart enough to know a Jiggle Me doll for the baby of the family wasn’t enough to ease her cousins’ animosity over the lawsuit contesting their grandfather’s will. After all, it wasn’t her fault the cousins only got one dollar each, and she got three million, but she had to try. For her grandma’s sake.
She glanced at the sliding glass doors to the entrance of Bullseye. The Christmas music piped through hidden speakers grated on her nerves as she waited by the display case between the restrooms and Starbucks cafe. The yuletide song didn’t appear to make the shoppers any less desperate for the hot gift of the season. In fact, it probably just reminded everyone this was the last shopping weekend before D-day.
“Oh, Raina, you don’t have to. It’s not our tradition to give presents, and money is tight for you,” said Cassie over the phone.
“I have this housekeeping gig at a fancy resort for winter break. I’ll be fine. Besides, Lila is my only niece. I’m here shopping with the foreign exchange student anyway. Or I will be when she gets here.”
“Alright, but that’s it. She has more than enough toys. See you at the Christmas dinner.”
Raina hung up and glanced at the entrance of the store again. She normally wasn’t a stickler for punctuality, but Fanny was forty minutes late and hadn’t even bothered sending a text message. Raina had given up Saturday morning brunch with her grandma to take the foreign exchange student shopping.
So a trip to the big box retail store wasn’t exactly “shopping,” but it was more convenient than traipsing through the mom-and-pop stores in downtown Gold Springs or driving to Sacramento. Either option would have taken up her entire afternoon. It wasn't like Fanny would know any different. Or at least Raina hoped she didn’t.
“Excuse me,” said a thickly accented voice from behind her.
Raina turned. “Yes?”
The pixie-faced Chinese woman bit her lower lip. Her eyes darted nervously over Raina’s shoulder. The baby cradled in her arms slept as only an infant could with all the noise in the store.
Raina glanced over her shoulder, but couldn’t tell what the young mom was looking at. She squinted at the other Chinese woman exiting the store. Did the woman have pink highlights like the foreign exchange student? “Fanny!” She waved an arm. “Hey, Fanny! Over here!” The woman didn't turn around. Oops, wrong person.
Something soft and warm pressed against her other arm. She whipped her head around to stare at the stranger who held out her baby with both hands.
“Can you hold baby for me? I need use potty. No place put baby inside.”
Raina took a step back, her arms held out automatically to ward off the intrusion into her personal space. “Have we met?”
This was the strangest proposition she’d gotten in a while. Didn’t this woman know she shouldn’t trust a stranger with her child?
The woman pointed at the short hall next to them. “Potty.” She shook her head and made a buckling motion as if putting on a seat belt. “No place for baby.”
Raina assumed she meant there wasn’t a working baby changing station in a restroom stall. Cassie had often complained how difficult it was to pee while juggling a baby in a public restroom the few times she ran out of the house for quick trips without her stroller.
The woman’s tailored clothes and Coach purse suggested she should have money to buy a stroller. Even the baby was clad in an expensive blue cashmere one-piece. Or they could be knock-offs? Not that Raina could tell otherwise.
“I trust you with most precious gift: my son.” Her eyes widened as if she just had an important thought. “My name Sui Yuk Liang. What your name, please?” She dropped the huge diaper bag next to Raina’s feet.
The conversation was beginning to have a surreal quality to it. “Raina Sun.” She glanced at the automatic sliding glass doors at the front of the store. Still no Fanny.
Sui Yuk nodded as if the exchange of their names solidified her trust. “Rain Water. You Chinese like me. You take care baby.” She thrust the child into Raina’s arms and released her hold.
Raina caught the infant. It was either this or the child would kiss the floor. Before she could utter a word, Sui Yuk disappeared into the hallway toward the women’s re
stroom. Raina tucked the infant against her shoulder, cradling his head. How did she get herself into these situations? First Fanny and now this.
She should be more gracious and welcoming toward the foreign exchange student, but the couple of times she’d spent in Fanny’s company hadn’t left her with warm fuzzy feelings. This favor was for her friend Brenda, who was too busy dealing with the Christmas orders for pies and cakes at the Venus Cafe.
As the host family, Brenda or her husband, Joe, should be the ones helping Fanny with her shopping. But when Brenda asked if Raina could help out since she was close in age to Fanny, she had to say yes. She couldn’t jeopardize her special status as a friend of the owners. The food was that good. And so was the discount.
Did ten o'clock mean something different in China? Not that Raina would know. The bus ride to Bullseye was straightforward and only took twenty minutes. She wouldn’t have agreed to meet Fanny at the store otherwise. If Fanny didn’t show up soon, Raina would have to spend her lunch trying to track down the foreign exchange student. What was that Chinese proverb? Duty was heavier than a mountain.
She glanced at the hall. Five more minutes and then she’d pop her head in the restroom. Did Sui Yuk have a diarrhea attack? She didn’t want to embarrass the young mom, but this would explain her desperate willingness to trust a stranger to watch her baby while she did the dirty deed.
“I was here first,” said an irritated male voice.
Raina glanced at the mile-long line at Starbucks.
A middle-aged man with a receding hairline glared at the barista behind the counter. “I have been waiting for the last fifteen minutes.” He pointed a tapered finger at the young woman stirring sugar into her cup. “She was behind me. Why did she get her coffee before me?”
Raina rolled her eyes. The holidays brought out everyone's best behavior.
The baby grunted and wiggled. Time to find the baby's mama.
She hooked the diaper bag on one shoulder and made her way into the women's restroom. The diaper bag was heavier than Altas’s burden and just as bulky. Her left shoulder already ached from carrying it. “Deck the Halls” echoed between the stalls. She sidestepped around the two women waiting in line and ignored their frowns.
“Sui Yuk,” Raina whispered into the first stall. “Are you almost done? The baby is waking up.”
No answer.
She repeated her performance at the next stall.
“Go away.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too,” Raina muttered.
The woman in the next stall answered with a curt “Not here.”
Raina knocked on the last stall. Sweat beaded on the small of her back as an uneasy feeling twisted in her gut. “Sui Yuk, are you in here? The baby is waking up.”
“Wrong stall, hon,” the woman called out.
Raina must have crossed paths with Sui Yuk somehow. She hustled back to the front of the store. Her eyes scanned the area, but she didn’t see the mother anywhere. The baby started to root at her shoulder, making small ah-ah grunts. She patted his small back and prayed he would go back to sleep.
She trotted over to Guest Services and asked him to page Sui Yuk.
The sleepy-eyed teenage guy shrugged. “Okay, madam.” He made the announcement over the P.A. system and turned to help another customer.
The baby pumped his fists as he opened his mouth and wailed. A loud squawk as if he knew a stranger held him. Other customers were now staring openly as they walked by.
Food. The baby must need food. Raina dropped the diaper bag on the floor and dug around for a bottle. No milk. Her armpits dampened as a hot flash of anxiety ran through her. What mother would leave home without a bottle? Geez, even if Sui Yuk was nursing, she should come back before her baby needed to eat.
Raina fumbled to unzip a small side pocket and pulled out a sheet of wrinkled notebook paper. Her eyes widened at the words.
Please call 758-1889 if something happens to Sui Yuk Liang
What a strange note, she thought. Bouncing the baby, she dialed the number, but it went straight to voicemail with a generic message to leave a callback number. Her message came out in a rush about Sui Yuk’s failure to reappear after using the restroom. She left her name and both her home and cell phone numbers, wincing at the panic in her voice.
She clutched her phone and stared at the display. Please call back.
The baby’s shriek pierced the area as if Raina held him over a boiling cauldron. She cradled his body and stuck her pinkie in his mouth. He sucked eagerly, but his tiny face crumbled as he realized her pinkie held no sustenance.
Maybe he didn't need food. Raina pulled the child closer and sniffed his diaper. Powder fresh. Her breath came out in a rush, grateful for the small favor.
Raina scanned the crowd again. No Sui Yuk appeared to claim her baby. Surely, a mother wouldn't just abandon her baby with a stranger.
She pressed her cell phone between her ear and shoulder as she bounced the child on her other shoulder. “Matthew, I’m holding a wailing baby, and I seem to have lost his mother.” She ignored the pointed looks from the other shoppers and explained the situation.
Matthew Louie was a homicide detective, but she didn’t know who else to call. And with a police force of only ten people, including the chief, it really didn’t matter who she called. This would eventually make its way to the officer in charge of child abandonment cases.
The baby wiggled, and her phone slipped from her shoulder. It smashed onto the floor, and the back cover popped off. The battery slid across the white tiled floor and under the rows of shopping carts in front of her.
“Great!” she said to no one in particular.
She tucked the crying baby firmly into her arm and dropped to her knees. As she patted the space underneath the shopping carts, she was conscious of her butt-in-the-air pose.
“Rainy, why aren’t you wearing the new underwear I got you? Your old ones leave too many panty lines,” a familiar voice said from behind her.
Someone snickered.
Raina straightened and shifted the baby to her other shoulder to even out the ringing in her ears. “Ha-ha, Grandma.”
Po Po glanced at the wailing infant. She smiled at the child, her face becoming a roadmap of laugh lines in a cloud of silver hair. The baby’s mouth opened and closed like a fish.
“You do know a baby is not like a cute dog. He’s not going to be a conversation starter with men,” her grandma said.
“I could use a hand here.”
As soon as he heard Raina’s voice, the baby started crying again. Her body tensed, and heat rushed to her face.
“Let me have the little one.” Her grandma held the infant against one shoulder, shushing and swaying her body from side to side. The child relaxed and a finger found its way to his mouth.
Raina's eyes widened at the sight, but she didn’t waste an extra second to stare at the contrast between the pink-faced baby and the white-haired elderly Chinese woman. She shoved the shopping carts aside to rescue her elusive battery.
The screen on her phone had a large crack across one corner. Her heart sank at the damage. She'd replaced her phone only a few months ago. Assembling the phone was a breeze, but the screen remained stubbornly black when she powered it on.
“Here. Use my smarty-pants phone,” said Po Po.
Raina called Matthew again but got his voicemail this time. She left a brief message with her location and handed the phone back to her grandma.
“Keep it for now in case he calls back,” said Po Po.
“What are you doing here? Miss spending your Saturday mornings with your favorite granddaughter?”
“My grandkids are like my toes. It’s kind of hard to pick one to chop off.” Po Po shifted the baby to her other shoulder. “So where is the famous foreign exchange student? I figured you’d bring her here since Sacramento is a little out of the way. I thought we could still have lunch after you’re done.” Po Po glanced at the baby. “But I didn’t realize you
would acquire a baby. Rainy, you’re supposed to find a husband first. The baby comes later.”
“Ha-ha. You’re a riot. She’s a no-show. Right now, I have more important things to worry about, like finding out what happened to the baby’s mother.” Raina told her grandma what happened with Sui Yuk Liang.
“Why did you accept the baby? He’s cute and all, but if you had said no, then you wouldn’t be in this predicament.”
Raina sighed. “Because he reminds me of Lila. I would hope if Cassie was ever in a similar situation, someone would help her like I helped Sui Yuk Liang. What would you have done?”
“Exactly what you did. Come on, Rainy. Let me buy you a drink.”
The knot in Raina’s stomach loosened, and the tension drained from her body. “Think I can have some alcohol in it?”
“Sure. I have a flask of vodka in my purse.”
Raina gave her grandma a peck on the cheek. “Love you.”
Po Po handed her a ten. “Why don’t I go buy some formula and a bottle while you wait in the Starbucks line with the baby? I’d take the baby with me, except”—she lowered her voice into a whisper—“it’s dangerous where I’m going.”
“Um, sure.” The baby had fallen asleep by this time.
A few minutes later, Raina sipped an iced caramel macchiato at a small table. The baby still slept blissfully in her arm. The Saturday morning shoppers barely spared a glance at the two. Anonymity was a wonderful thing.
She tried the number in the diaper bag again, leaving another message and her grandma’s cell number.
“Let’s go. We need to get out of here. Now!” Po Po said when she came back. “We’ll call Matthew to come get the baby at your place once we’re on the road.”
“Matthew might be on his way already. He’s not going to be happy if we send him on a wild goose chase. And it’s raining like crazy. We shouldn’t take the baby outside.”
Po Po glanced behind her. Her knuckles whitened around the handle of the plastic bags she carried.
