Just like her shop, my pride went up in flames and was gone in a flash.
4
“Grandma, I don’t see why I need to wear all of this!” My protests were completely ignored.
“What do you think, Kitty Purry?” Grandma asked the cat. “Do you think she needs more rouge?”
Kitty tilted her head like she was seriously thinking it over, then she meowed. Apparently, she said yes.
“I can’t believe you’re going to take that cat’s advice!” I said, pushing away the make-up brush.
Grandma paused and thought it over. “You’re right. This is more of a question to ask Catalie Portman. Kitty usually does go a little overboard with the makeup.”
She hollered twice for Catalie Portman before finally going off to look for her. I took advantage of her absence and quickly wiped off some of the eye shadow and lipstick. It wasn’t long before she was back with the cat and I had to hide the makeup-stained tissue.
She sat Catalie on the counter and turned her to look at me. “What do you think? Does she need more of anything?”
Catalie stared at me for at least a full minute. “Oh come on, Grandma, this is ridiculous!” I objected.
“Shhhh,” she hissed. “She’s thinking!”
I sat there feeling like an idiot for at least another thirty seconds before the cat meowed and jumped off the counter.
Grandma puffed up with pride. “She thinks you look perfect!”
Thirty minutes and one long lecture about my lack of fashion sense later, I was on my way out the door.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” I felt bad leaving Grandma Dean just a day after she found out someone had purposefully set fire to her antique store.
“I’ll be fine.” She was practically pushing me out the door. “Go and have fun! And make sure you come back with some information. Oh!” she yelled as I neared the parking lot. “And don’t wreck my car!”
I sat down and heard the leather seats beneath me squeak a little. This was nothing like my truck back home. My seats had holes in them and the truck smelled like horses no matter how many times I Febreezed the cab. Mountain Dew bottles littered the floor and gum wrappers (some with chewed gum inside) were piled up everywhere next to the Snickers wrappers.
Grandma Dean’s car looked like it had just been driven off the lot and it smelled like freshly baked cookies…with not a crumb in sight.
I was a nervous wreck as I tried to make my way to the coffee shop. I had taken careful notes on the way home yesterday so I would know how to find it today. I was happy when I took a right and the downtown area appeared up ahead.
“You found it!” Detective Owen Russell stood to greet me when I walked in the door of the coffee shop. His dark hair and dark eyes made him instantly likeable. He was wearing khakis and a red polo shirt with sleeves that hugged his biceps. He looked like he had just stepped out of a J. C. Penney catalog…or one of those catalogs that sold men’s underwear. Whatever catalog he stepped out of, I definitely wanted to order it all.
“I know. I’m feeling pretty proud of myself at the moment.”
He returned my smile and I joined him at the table.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I got here early so I went ahead and ordered.”
I eyed his giant cinnamon roll. I had only been living with Grandma Dean for two days, but already I felt like I was starving to death. She had zero tolerance for anything she considered unhealthy. Part of me wanted to play the good little girl with self-control and not order anything, but the real part of me—the part that gets the shakes if I don’t get sugar—jumped up and ordered not just one cinnamon roll but two.
The look on his face when I returned to our table with a tray full of food told me he was surprised to see what I ordered. Thankfully, he never actually said anything.
“So, how is your grandmother today?” He caught me mid-bite and he had to wait a few seconds for me to answer.
“She’s actually doing really well today!” I took a drink of my coffee and added three little cups of cream. How can people drink this stuff black, I wondered. As I stirred and watched the dark and light liquids swirl together, I thought about Grandma Dean. She really was doing well. She had been in a good mood all morning, like nothing had ever happened.
“You’re worrying about something,” Owen said over his coffee cup. “I can tell.”
I shifted in my chair. “I’m not really worried,” I said, cutting off another piece of cinnamon roll. “I was just thinking about how happy she seemed today…” I was going to say more, but when I looked up and saw the look he was giving me, I had a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Nikki,” he said, putting down his cup and leaning over the table a little. “I’m going to ask you something and I don’t want you to be offended.”
I hated conversations that started out like that. They almost always led to me being offended.
I leaned back in my chair, bracing myself for whatever it was he was going to say.
“Is your Grandmother okay…financially?”
His question caught me off-guard. “What do you mean?”
Owen cleared his throat and laced his hands in front of him on the table. “Has she had any financial trouble lately? Maybe some bad investments, or a retirement account running out?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. What was he really asking me?
“Look,” he said in a sweet voice that made me feel sick. “I’ve known your Grandmother for two years now and I think the world of her, but sometimes money makes us do things we wouldn’t normally do, especially if we’re running low…”
I cut him off. “She’s doing just fine financially! I’m sure she has more money than you’ll see in your entire lifetime!”
“Nikki, look, I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s my job to ask these kinds of things. I have to look at every angle.”
“And what angle are you looking at right now?” I was so angry, I felt like my head was going to explode.
Owen sighed. “Your grandmother is going to get a sizeable amount from the insurance company…”
I stood up, furious. “You think she burned down her own shop to collect the insurance money?”
The look on his face told me everything I needed to know. I grabbed my purse and stormed toward the door. Suddenly, I stopped in my tracks. I took a deep breath. I was angry and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was acting like a fool. With one more deep breath, I turned and walked back to the table. Owen smiled as I made my way back and seemed to relax a little in his seat. I gave him a weak smile, then scooped up my cinnamon rolls and stormed back out. I couldn’t believe how dangerously close I had been to leaving them there.
I got lost on the drive home to Grandma Dean’s apartment. I was so angry I couldn’t think straight. How dare he accuse her of something like that! He had seen how distraught she was yesterday!
I pulled over and tried to hold back my tears. I took a big bite of my cinnamon roll and tried to swallow it past the lump in my throat. I felt like such an idiot. I thought Owen had asked me on a date. Instead, he just wanted to get information he could use to arrest my grandma. What kind of monster does that? My embarrassment and anger over the situation quickly turned to guilt when I realized I had eaten both cinnamon rolls…and stolen the plates they had been sitting on. I would have to return the plates later.
I got out of the car and tried to brush the crumbs off my clothes, then I bent over and tried to carefully brush the crumbs from the seat. Grandma would kill me if she saw the mess I had made.
“Nikki?”
The voice behind me made me jump. I turned to see Fireman Joe walking away from his pickup and walking toward me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I tried to say through a mouthful of cinnamon roll. I blew little pieces of it everywhere as I spoke and I hoped the sun was in his eyes enough that he didn’t see it.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” The compassion in his voice made me lose it. I burst i
nto tears, spraying another round of cinnamon roll from my mouth. I had to have put half that thing in my mouth at one time. That was what happened when I got upset. It was like an endless game of Chubby Bunny.
Joe wrapped his arms around me while I sobbed and chewed at the same time. I was relieved when I finally swallowed the last bit of the roll. I closed my eyes and took in his scent before I pulled away from him. Dang, he smelled good.
I wiped the tears from my face, feeling foolish now for crying in front of Joe like that.
“So are you going to tell me what happened?” He leaned down toward me as he said it and tucked a piece of my wild hair behind my ear.
I sniffed and wiped my face again, noticing that my hand came away with frosting on it. My gosh, I was such a mess.
“I had a conversation with Detective Owen Russell,” I finally answered. Just saying his name made me angry all over again.
“Is everything okay?” Joe’s face wrinkled with concern.
“Yes, except that he thinks my grandma caught her own shop on fire for the insurance money!” I yelled the words, unable to control myself.
“What?” Joe’s face took on the same anger that I felt inside. “He knows Geraldine. We all do! She wouldn’t do something like that!”
“That’s what I told him!” Did I actually tell him that? I wasn’t sure exactly what I told him.
Joe was furious. “I know he’s a cop and he’s got to look into things, but come on! That’s a stretch!”
I just shook my head. I didn’t know what to say anymore. Suddenly, I thought of my grandmother. “What am I going to tell her we talked about?” I asked Joe. “She knows we went for coffee. She’s going to want to know everything!”
Joe was quiet for a moment. “You met for coffee? Like a date?”
“More like an interrogation!” I really had thought it was a date of some sort, but I would never admit that to him…or anyone.
“I think we should keep this to ourselves.” Joe put his arm on my shoulder. “If I know your grandma, and believe me I do, she will not react well to this.” He shuddered and I wondered what was flashing through his mind.
I took a deep breath. He was right. Grandma would be furious if she found out she was a suspect. And who knew what she would do—probably something that would only make things worse.
“I’ll have a talk with him,” Joe said as I climbed back in the car. “I’ll find out if he actually has any evidence…”
“He doesn’t!” I yelled. “Because she didn’t do it!”
“I know she didn’t. But I’ll find out why he would even consider her a suspect. I’ll call you soon and we can get together so I can tell you what I find out.”
I was smart enough this time to know it wasn’t a date. I thanked him and closed the car door, then watched him walk away in the rearview mirror. Even in my current state, I still noticed how good his butt looked in those jeans.
5
On the ride back to Grandma Dean’s apartment, I had wracked my brain trying to come up with some story of what Owen and I had talked about. By the time I was standing at her door, I still had no idea what to say. I opened the door and expected to be bombarded with questions. Instead, I was met with a group of bewildered old ladies staring at me.
Old wrinkled hands snatched things from the dining room table too fast for my eyes to see what they were. “What are you doing back so soon?” Grandma stood up nervously and walked toward me. “You look terrible,” she said when she got closer to me. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing,” I replied slowly as I looked past her suspiciously. “What’s going on here?”
“We’re playing cards.” Her answer was too fast and her tone too high-pitched. Something was clearly going on here.
I looked around her at the table. “Where are the cards then?”
All at once there was a flurry of movement at the table as each woman fished in her purse and pulled out a deck of cards. They smiled like they had me.
“If you’re playing cards…then why were they in your purses?” Panic flashed across their faces until one old lady with a purple tint to her hair spoke up. “It’s a game cool people play. You wouldn’t get it.”
That was harsh.
A chorus of laughter rang out and I could tell I clearly wasn’t wanted here. Whatever they were up to, they wanted it to be a secret. Well, they could have their little secret. I wanted to go lay down.
I tried to squeeze past Grandma, but she put her hand on my arm gently. “Where are you going?”
“To my room. I have a terrible headache.”
Nervous coughs made their way around the table.
“You need some sun,” Grandma said to me in an overly sweet voice. “Why don’t you go sit by the pool for a little bit?” She smoothed my hair like I was a child, then she made a face. She pulled her hand back and held a little piece of cinnamon roll. Her face went red and she shook her head. To her horror, I took it from her and popped it into my mouth. I thought she was going to kill me right there.
“Here, take this.” An old lady in a magenta velour tracksuit stuck her hand in her purse and pulled out a tomato. “You can sit outside by the pool and eat this.”
“You might need some salt with that.” Another lady dug in her purse and pulled out a tiny crystal saltshaker.
Hattie, the lady who had picked me up from the airport, handed me a wintergreen mint and a Reader’s Digest magazine.
One by one, they went around the table, pulling odd things out of their purses and handing them to me—an ink pen that was also a flashlight, a bag of cookies that appeared to be snickerdoodles, and a roll of Tums. The last lady handed me a dollar for a “soda pop” at the vending machine by the pool.
Grandma ushered me to the door in the living room that led out to the pool. She had to get the door for me since my hands were full. “You just relax out there and get some sun. I’ll come looking for you in a little bit.” She smiled at me as she gave me one last little push. I could hear her locking it as soon as the door closed. What could they be doing in there?
Before I had time to come up with an answer, the door flew open again. Grandma stuck her head out and narrowed her eyes. “And don’t ever eat anything out of your hair again. For goodness sakes, Nikki, quit acting like a barbarian!”
She slammed the door and I was left holding old lady provisions. I pressed my ear to the door hoping to hear something that might give me a clue as to what was happening inside. All I heard was muffled laughter.
“Oh! That looks like one of Irene’s tomatoes. Are you going to eat that?” I spun around, dropping the flashlight pen and the Reader’s Digest. I was thankful it wasn’t the crystal saltshaker.
I was suddenly face to face with an old man in a speedo. His silky robe made him look like he just got back from the Playboy mansion while his dyed black hair and mustache screamed 1970s used car salesman.
“I’m Lloyd,” he said as he leaned against the apartment. “And who might you be?”
“Nikki,” I said as I scrambled to pick up the pen and magazine.
“And what is a delicate flower such as yourself doing out here in the sun?” He gave me a look that sent shivers up my spine. This guy was creepy.
“I’m visiting my grandmother,” I said, trying to push past him.
He stepped in front of me.
“Oh! I see the resemblance now! You must be Geraldine Dean’s granddaughter. She’s quite a looker…and so are you.” He winked at me and smiled. I nearly threw up.
I turned around and started to walk in the opposite direction when it hit me. Would he know why Grandma Dean was having a meeting at her house today?
“Hey, uh, Lloyd,” I said casually as I turned around. He was leaning against the building now, stretching his calves. I tried not to roll my eyes.
“My grandmother has several friends over right now. Does she normally have meetings on Thursday afternoons?”
He looked around to make sure no one wa
s watching or listening and carefully made his way toward me, almost tiptoeing. He glanced around one more time before he spoke. “They have a secret group and they get together every week.”
“Secret group? What kind of secret group?”
He shushed me like I was talking too loudly. “What kind of secret group?” I repeated again, this time in a whisper.
“If you want to come back to my apartment for some wine, I can tell you,” he whispered with a sly smile.
“Forget it,” I said loudly and then turned to walk away. What a creep.
“Wait,” he said, taking a few steps toward me. “I’ll tell you.” He looked around again. This man was paranoid. “It’s kind of like a neighborhood watch. They call themselves the Glock Grannies. You know…” He paused when he saw the confusion on my face. “…like the gun.”
“My grandma has a gun?” I nearly shouted the words and he quickly put his finger to my lips to quiet me down. They smelled like hot dogs. “They all have guns. It’s their thing.”
Was that what they were scrambling to pick up when I walked in?
“You can’t tell anyone about it,” he said sternly. “It’s a secret.”
“Well, if it’s a secret then why do you know about it?”
“Because,” he said, standing tall and puffing out his chest, “Irene sings like a bird in bed. She spills all her secrets.”
“Ewww!” I shouted. TMI!
He laughed behind me as I walked away. “I can’t help it if I’m like candy to those ladies!”
I shuddered and tried to get the vision of him and Irene out of my mind.
“Wait!” he shouted one more time. “Seriously, are you going to eat that tomato? Nobody grows tomatoes like Irene.”
I looked down at the plump bright red tomato sitting in the crook of my elbow. I shoved some things in my pocket and tossed it to him. He could have the tomato, but I was keeping the snickerdoodles.
6
I used the back gate to escape Lloyd, and was thankful I still had Grandma Dean’s keys in my pocket. I jumped in her car and put my head back on the seat with a sigh. I had left my life in Illinois to get some clarity and instead I jumped right into a made-for-TV crime drama. Or at the very least, a dark episode of Golden Girls.
Up in Smoke (Glock Grannies Cozy Mystery Book 1) Page 3
