“Lexie, Aunt Gladys. Short for Alexandria.” Lexie took her aunt’s hand, noting the dry, parchment-like skin covered in brown age spots. About fifteen million gold bracelets rattled on her arm.
“Lexie, Leslie. Same difference in my book.” She sat up slowly with a grimace. “What kind of a name is that anyway?”
“It’s the name your sister gave me.”
“Ah, Lucille Beatrice.” She smiled wistfully. “How is the old girl doing these days? She still singing in the church choir? And how’s that pastor husband of hers? Still fingering his prayer beads?”
Lexie’s stomach twisted. “She and my father were killed in a car accident. Don’t you remember?”
Aunt Gladys squeezed her eyes shut. “Ah, yes. Her and Princess Di. It’s such a tragedy when we lose good people. They say only the good die young. That must mean I’m bad. Very bad. When I’m good, I’m bad. When I’m bad, I’m even better.” She cackled. “Mae West said that. She was the best.” Aunt Gladys craned her neck and looked over Lexie’s shoulder. “Where’s that big sister of yours? Lucy? Dr. Demented here says she came, too.”
Lexie stifled a chuckle, but it came out like a retarded snort. “She’s waiting for us out front. We’re taking you home to Moose Creek Junction.”
“Oh sure, bury me in the armpit of America again.” She held up a long, bony middle finger. “Where busybodies rule and normal people drool.”
“Really, it’s not that bad, Aunt Gladys.”
Her brown eyes snapped. “Can’t we go somewhere fun like Las Vegas? I can still dance, you know. I could hire on at the Flamingo. Teach those anorexic flailing floozies a thing or two.” Aunt Gladys tried with difficulty to stand. Lexie quickly took one arm and Dr. Ravenwood grasped the other, helping to lift her up.
“Is Herman coming with us, too? Please tell me he is or I’ll simply have a coronary.” Aunt Gladys pressed a hand over her heart and stared heavenward.
Dr. Ravenwood firmly told her, “Herman’s family picked him up yesterday. He is no longer a resident at Mountain Shadows.”
Gladys shoved her hands on her hips. “He left me? Without even saying goodbye?”
“He went home to his family, Mrs. Maplethorpe. Just like you’re going to.”
“Bastard.” Aunt Gladys jutted out her chin and fixed Dr. Ravenwood with a glare. “All men are bastards, you know. Including you, Dr. Demented.”
“You’re upset, madam,” Dr. Ravenwood said with strained patience. He took Aunt Gladys’ elbow and steered her back to the patio. “Let’s get you to your room so you can get dressed.”
Aunt Gladys smacked Dr. Ravenwood on the back of his head. “I am dressed, you nincompoop!”
Something plopped to the ground and landed by Aunt Gladys’s caftan. She looked down and sucked in a breath.
“What’s this?” Dr. Ravenwood leaned over to pick up a diamond-studded watch “I don’t recall you having a watch like this, Mrs. Maplethorpe.”
Aunt Gladys pursed her lips. “It’s not mine, exactly.”
“Where did you get it?” Ravenwood asked.
“I borrowed it from Minnie. You know, the poor old darling doesn’t need timepieces these days. She’s loonier than a … a loon.”
“I take it you borrowed the watch without Minnie’s knowledge?”
“I resent your implication that I stole it. Really, Dr. Demented. Perhaps you are losing your marbles. Physician, heal thyself…”
“I’m sure Aunt Gladys meant no harm,” Lexie said. She met Aunt Gladys’ gaze. “You meant to return the watch, right?”
“Of course.” Aunt Gladys lifted a haughty brow. “I was merely polishing it.”
“Dr. Ravenwood, will you please return the watch to Minnie for Aunt Gladys?” Lexie asked.
“By all means.” Ravenwood pocketed the watch and took Aunt Gladys’ elbow again. “This way, ladies.”
As they walked into the retirement home, Aunt Gladys between Dr. Ravenwood and Lexie, she noticed how the old lady’s frame was bent with age. Despite Aunt Gladys’ feistiness, she still seemed frail. It was apparent the old gal would need protection, even it if was simply from herself.
A bad feeling washed over Lexie. Boy, oh boy, oh boy. She knew she was in for the time of her life with Aunt Gladys. Maybe the old lady would calm down and behave once she and Lucy got her home. But she wouldn’t hold her breath on that one.
Gladys abruptly jerked away from Ravenwood. “Take your hands off of me, you whiny pervert! I’m not a thumb-sucking baby. I can still dress myself.”
Dr. Ravenwood dropped his hands to his sides. “Of course you can. I apologize.”
Aunt Gladys turned to Lexie. “And Leslie. If I’m to be staying with you, you simply must evict that boy-man who’s been living with you all these years. I have trouble enough sleeping at night without Junior crawling around up on the roof, making all kinds of noise.”
Boy-man? Junior? What universe was she living in? “Sure, Aunt Gladys. I’ll get rid of him right away.”
“Hmmph!” Mums drooping in her hands, Aunt Gladys pushed past the doctor, flounced inside and strutted down the hall to her room.
Dr. Ravenwood looked at Lexie and shrugged. “Your aunt is, shall we say, a most eccentric woman.”
Lexie nodded, thinking that eccentric was putting it mildly. Man, oh man, oh man was she in for it. This was going to be one heck of an autumn.
She was under suspicion for murder. She was living with a certifiable lunatic.
Good Lord. She could only begin to imagine the fireworks once she got Aunt Gladys installed in her house and in her life.
It would be the Fourth of July all over again.
With Aunt Gladys signed out of the home, Lexie and Lucy loaded her bags and suitcases, which filled up the trunk and most of the back seat. At last, the three women belted up, took off, and headed north. With the unusually high fall temperatures hovering somewhere in the nineties, Lucy’s air conditioning blasted away. Aunt Gladys in the back seat was blasting away, too, griping about the rotten nursing home and horrible Dr. Demented, all the while crocheting a purple afghan, gnarled fingers flying.
When the nursing home stories dried up, Aunt Gladys changed to long-winded stories about sweet little Brucie when he was a boy. Sweet little Brucie my foot, Lexie thought. If he was so sweet, why hadn’t he come home from Singapore to care for his mother instead of pawning her off on relatives? She hoped he hadn’t been lying when he said he’d be home soon to collect her.
No, change the hope. Lexie prayed he would be back.
Amazingly enough, the old gal continued to ramble for three hours. Three hours? How could anyone find that much to talk about? It just wasn’t right. Just about the time Lexie thought she was going to pass out from the high pitched sound ringing in her ears, Aunt Gladys fell asleep, snoring loudly enough to wake King Tut.
Lucy gave Lexie a deer-in-the-headlights look as they headed into a restaurant. Lexie could tell that her patience was worn thin, too, because beads of sweat had popped out on her usually cool brow, and she was fanning her face. Another hot flash. If she wasn’t menopausal, Lexie figured she would be soon, having Aunt Gladys around.
They returned home early in the evening without incident, except that both sisters were tone-deaf, thanks to Princess Runs-At-the-Mouth. Lucy helped Lexie settle Aunt Gladys in the attic apartment, then she gave Lexie a long-faced look that hinted heavily of her desire to leave. Lexie walked her to the door.
“Come by to visit often, Lucille,” Aunt Gladys brightly told Lucy, waving one of her bony, be-ringed fingers before she threw a gauzy, fringed scarf over a lamp shade. “You’re welcome any time.”
At the front door, Lucy turned to Lexie, her forehead wrinkled in concern. “I’m worried. Maybe we shouldn’t have taken Aunt Gladys in.”
“We didn’t. I did.”
“You know Otis can’t stand her. My house would be world war three if she stayed with me. But that’s a minor detail.”
Like cloc
kwork, Sister Lucy listened each Sunday at church to sermons on the mount about being a good neighbor, loving thy fellow man and taking care of your own. Obviously, she only practiced what the preacher preached if it fit into her lifestyle. Funny, the things you learned about your family once you moved back home.
“I don’t understand. How is the fact that Aunt Gladys has the potential to wreak utter havoc on my home a minor detail?”
“What about our murder investigation? How are we going to manage that with the poor dear lurking around, having to be watched every minute of her waking life? I think it’s time to leave the police work to the police as your Detective Stevenson suggested.”
“Number one, Gabe Stevenson is not my detective.” Lexie shoved her hands on her hips. “Number two, I’ll … I’ll …” Lexie blew a hot, frustrated breath through her teeth. “I’ll figure something out. I have to. I can’t let my business go down the drain because I’m a murder suspect.”
“Of course, dear. Of course.” Lucy plucked nervously at the pearls around her neck. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Remember, it’s your birthday.”
“Right. Thanks for reminding me. It’s always been a dream of mine to turn into a thirty-seven year old divorcee supporting a child in college and having a crazy aunt living with her.”
“Everything will be all right,” Lucy said condescendingly as she patted Lexie’s arm. “You’ll see.” Lucy headed off to her car in the lavender twilight.
Still grumpy about her sister getting off Aunt Gladys babysitting duty scot free, Lexie went back upstairs to make sure the old gal was comfortable. Demonstrating great restraint, she listened for another couple of hours to the woman’s vivid memories of being a Las Vegas showgirl while she unpacked. When Aunt Gladys produced a candle and a lighter, Lexie quickly confiscated the loot.
“No, Aunt Gladys. No candles in the house.”
Aunt Gladys batted her false eyelashes. “And why not, Leslie?”
Lexie pictured her house going up in flames and she swallowed hard. “Ah, I don’t have a smoke alarm installed up here.”
Aunt Gladys relaxed, but remained persistent. “When may I have my candle back?”
When pigs fly. “After I have a smoke alarm installed up here,” Lexie explained.
“Very well then.” Aunt Gladys began to hum another old show tune and Lexie busied herself picking up tossed plastic bags that had once held Aunt Gladys’s hundreds of pairs of shoes.
After dinner, Aunt Gladys finally went to bed, claiming she was exhausted. Lexie cleaned up, started the dishwasher and went up to her own room, feeling like she’d weathered a tornado. Crawling between the sheets, she tried to sleep. Unfortunately, she tossed and turned all night, worried about Aunt Gladys and the myriad of shenanigans she might rain down upon her house.
At last Lexie slumbered, dreaming of a shadowy person chasing her with a butcher knife. Like a wild woman, she ran all over Moose Creek Junction, trying to escape the maniac. Unfortunately, everywhere she went, he stalked her, intent upon ending her life.
How could she get a decent night’s sleep? She was still under suspicion for murder and there was a killer wandering around Moose Creek Junction. Even counting sheep could not counteract that niggling reality.
At 5 a.m., Lexie finally shot out of bed like a bolt of lightning, heart beating like a racehorse. The killer was still on the loose. He’d attacked her once. And since he apparently didn’t like her asking questions around town about Whitehead’s murder, he just might attack her again.
Even more disturbing she was still a murder suspect. What if people didn’t come to the Saucy Lucy because they thought she really was guilty? God. And then there was Aunt Gladys.
What was she to do? Should she let the police do the investigating, even though they were slow as Christmas and she could lose her business before they solved the murder? Should she continue, despite the odds, to conduct her own amateur fact-finding missions?
Maybe if she were a religious person and prayed a lot, the Lord would part the heavens and give her a sign about what she should do. But she wasn’t religious. She was afraid and desperate. And there was no apparent answer to her dilemma.
CHAPTER 8
WIRED TIGHT AS AN ANTIQUE BEDSPRING, Lexie showered and dressed then crept upstairs to check on her aunt. The old lady was snoring like a woodchuck in heat, her arm flung over her forehead and her shriveled breasts quivering beneath her gauzy pink nightie. Shutting the door to the bedroom, Lexie surveyed the attic apartment and Aunt Gladys’ luggage strewn everywhere. She made a mental note to come up later in the afternoon and help organize her things in the chests and wardrobes.
Tip-toeing back down the stairs, Lexie mentally berated herself for any uncharitable thoughts she harbored about her loopy aunt. How sad to be old and alone and so annoying that not even your own child wanted to be around you. She should stop being so pessimistic and make some fun plans for the two of them to visit the local library and the museum and maybe even the botanical gardens in Westonville. With Eva spending so little time at home, Lexie would have a companion to do things with when she wasn’t working. They could rent videos and listen to music …
Lexie snorted. Who was she trying to fool?
This was Aunt Gladys she was talking about. The woman who spent more than twenty years on the Las Vegas strip as a showgirl with pasties on her boobs; the woman who had been married seven times and finally gone to truck driving school at age sixty-eight and handled big rigs for three years before her eyes got too bad. This was not your typical girlfriend type of companion, someone who would understand she was still saddened by her failed marriage and worried about her daughter adjusting to being a sister to a sibling she would probably never know.
And no, Aunt Gladys, who had always had a husband or boyfriend glued to her side, would definitely not understand the frustration of being celibate for two solid years without even so much as a whiff of testosterone coming her way.
Once she reached the kitchen and pawed through the refrigerator and cupboards, Lexie realized she was out of a few staples like coffee and butter. Her restaurant supplies were stocked to the hilt, but she’d been distracted lately and needed to re-supply a few of her own kitchen items.
With Aunt Gladys asleep, she felt it was safe to leave the house for a short amount of time. She drove over to Herb Musselman’s grocery store and picked up a few more things since Eva would be back this weekend.
Driving home, Lexie reflected on everything that was wrong with her life. Man, she sure felt crabby all the time. Maybe that’s what getting old did to you. Thank goodness she and Lucy had decided not to open the cafe on her birthday. She needed time to adjust to Aunt Gladys.
Back home, she put on a pot of coffee—butter rum flavor. She inhaled deeply and sighed; it smelled heavenly. Then she unloaded groceries and began putting things in cupboards. Trying to improve her outlook and attitude, she hummed, thinking that it seemed to work for batty Aunt Gladys. She really hoped the humming would brighten her mood because it suddenly occurred to her that black balloons would surely be a part of Eva’s birthday present to her. Oh-mi-god, as Eva would say.
The ringing phone made her jump. Quickly she placed the celery in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator and reached for the cordless. “Hello?”
“Lexie. Just called to check up on you. How are things going?”
Huh? Deputy Dog? Calling to harass me again, no doubt. This was not good. She had just lulled herself into a temporary state of semi-happiness, and now her hands were getting clammy and her breathing shallow. Darn that man anyway.
“As expected,” Lexie responded. “You want to question me more, or what?”
“Do you want me to?”
“I’d prefer not.” Lexie tensed her jaw. She’d be glad when this murder case was solved and Gabe Stevenson wasn’t breathing down her back anymore. It was positively unnerving. “By the way, how is everything going down there at the police department? Find the murderer yet?”<
br />
“No. But I found out Henry Whitehead was involved with a woman named Sophie Howell. So I went to Denver yesterday to pay a visit to the magic shop she owns with her husband Ernie.”
“And?” Lexie had a very bad feeling. Cradling the receiver on her shoulder, she unwrapped the roast she’d bought and plopped it into a crock-pot. Running water into a glass measuring cup, she added a package of dry onion soup and poured it over the meat. She finished by putting the lid on the pot and turning the heat to medium high.
“Come to find out, two women had been in to visit them a short while before I arrived. They asked all sorts of questions. One of them, a redhead, nearly got herself sawed in half she irritated Ernie so much.”
Lexie pretended indifference. “Hmmm, imagine that.”
“Lexie,” he said in a low voice. “Didn’t I tell you to leave the investigation to me?”
“What makes you think I was the redhead?”
“Otis told me you and Lucy were in Denver yesterday to pick up your Aunt Gladys.”
“You didn’t tell him we’d been to Houdini’s Hideout, did you?”
“You admit you were there?”
Lexie’s grip on the phone tightened. “No. I just want to make sure you didn’t tell Otis something that would make him angry with Lucy.”
“I didn’t tell him anything,” Gabe said. “But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out you were snooping.”
Just then Aunt Gladys shuffled into the kitchen wearing fuzzy pink slippers with floppy bunny ears and a silky, zebra stripe robe with a feather collar. Her head, covered in pink sponge rollers, bobbed a little as she looked around the room. “Where in God’s name am I? And who are you?”
Lexie put a hand over the receiver. “Your niece Lexie, Aunt Gladys. Lucy and I brought you here. This is my house in Moose Creek Junction.”
“Moose Creek Junction?” Aunt Gladys wailed. “This place is cursed and everyone around town hates me. I’ll die here.”
“It’s only temporary, Aunt Gladys. Bruce will be coming for you soon.”
The Saucy Lucy Murders Page 12
