Jump the Gun

by Zoe Burke

  ***

  We continued talking about Nana and Tall Oaks and Cassie’s murder through dinner, but Mom and Dad couldn’t come up with anything that might connect Nana to everything else that had happened. In fact, they seemed sure that there couldn’t be a connection between Cassie’s murder and Nana. I couldn’t blame them. It was all too wacky. They had never heard of Georgia Browning, either.

  We finished dinner around ten, and that’s when Mickey’s cell phone rang. He excused himself and went out on the back deck. Mom pinched me after he had closed the sliding glass door behind him.

  “Ouch!”

  “So what about him! Hubba hubba!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Hubba HUBba?? Huh? Well, what about him?” I did my best to sound indignant.

  “Come on, Bea, is he a boyfriend? Are you sleeping together?” I looked at Dad imploringly, but he just raised his eyebrows at me, all Gregory Pecky again.

  “Mom, jeez, we seem to like each other, and he has been very good to me through all of this. He’s good at taking care of people, I think, and…”

  “…and he’s in love with you.” This came from Dad, and it took me off guard. “It’s clear, muffinhead, I knew it as soon as you both walked in the door.”

  My mother clapped her hands together and said, “No shit!”

  I rolled my eyes again, but I felt my ears get hot, which meant they were glowing like halogen lightbulbs. I tried to act annoyed, but I found myself grinning. “You guys, really, stop, I mean it.”

  Mickey came back in, and we all picked up our forks like we had been eating non-stop since he left, even though there was no more food left on anyone’s plate. “That was Brad.” We all put our forks down and looked at him. “They checked out Georgia Browning’s office. She wasn’t there. They went to her home, and she wasn’t there, either. In fact, no one was there. So they talked to neighbors next door. Georgia and her husband were separated last year, and she moved into her flat when they split up.”

  “And he kept the kids?”

  “The neighbors said she didn’t have any kids.”

  “So who were those kids in the picture?”

  “The receptionist said they were Georgia’s husband’s nephews. Anyway, they found out the make of her car and they’ll keep looking for her. They’ve also cracked Cassie’s password protection on her laptop and found some emails from a Kirsten Day. They’ve located her and are questioning her.” He paused. “There’s something else, Annabelle. Georgia used to be the legal consultant at a Las Vegas casino. She moved to San Francisco only about a year ago and hung a shingle as an estate lawyer.”

  I took a deep inhale. “So she could easily know Jake.”

  Mickey nodded.

  “Did you tell Brad about our planned trip tomorrow?”

  “Yes. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem too concerned about it. I think he believes that Tall Oaks has little to do with anything, or, at least, it’s not a priority in this investigation. I did promise him we would tell him about anything we find out.”

  “It’s not a good idea, Mick.” Dad stood up and looked from one of us to the other. “Bea, I don’t want you to have anything more to do with any of this. You’ve been kidnapped, your friend has been killed, your hotel rooms and your apartment ransacked. This isn’t some great adventure. It’s dangerous, and it’s time you left it all to the police.”

  “A-fucking-men, darling,” said Mom.

  “I understand, Jeff,” said Mickey, “and the only reason I’m going along is to do my best to look after Annabelle.” All three of them looked at me.

  “Look. We’re just going up to Tall Oaks. In broad daylight. The police already know what’s going on, both in Las Vegas and San Francisco. I don’t have to be back at work until Monday. I don’t see how I can do anything else except try to figure this out. I’ll go crazy if I don’t.”

  “Sweetie,” Mom said, “aren’t you scared? Because I am. We are. And let’s face it, you’re not equipped to take this on.”

  I stiffened. “If I’m doing something, then I’m not sitting around and being scared, and that means I’m less scared. I like to be in control, you know that.” I appealed to my father. “Dad, I don’t want you to worry, even though I know you will. Mickey and I will be careful. I promise. Really, I have to do this.”

  Dad took my hand. “Muffin, it’s not up to you to fix this. It wasn’t up to you last year, and it’s not up to you now. Give yourself a break.”

  I shook my head. “I have to do this.”

  “What happened last year?” Mickey asked.

  The three of them were staring at me, waiting. I sighed. “It was at the company’s holiday dinner. The computer tech guy got really drunk. I went to the ladies’ room and found him there, trying to rape Carol, our customer service manager.”

  “Jesus. What did you do?”

  “She grabbed the fucking asshole and pulled him off and called security!” Mom put her hand on my shoulder. “You did everything you could, honey.”

  “No, I didn’t. Carol decided not to press charges, and I conveniently let the whole thing go.”

  “Because she asked you to let the whole thing go.” Dad sat back down.

  “I could have tried to get counseling for her, I could have even pressed assault charges myself on him since he pushed me away after I got him off of her.”

  Mickey looked confused. “I don’t get it. The woman didn’t want your help. So why are you beating yourself up about this?”

  I took a breath. “Nice choice of words. The guy beat her up a week later. She was in the hospital for four days.”

  “She’s okay? And the asshole is in jail now?”

  I took a deeper breath. “She’s okay. The asshole as far as I know, however, is still working freelance, servicing computer systems, and making a good living.”

  “As far as you know.” Mickey paused. “This asshole, what’s his name?”

  “Jerry Walbon.” As soon as I said it, a little shiver ran down my spine. “You don’t think…”

  “He might be carrying a grudge. Might have been looking for you and killed Cassie instead.”

  Mom said, “Oh, fuck,” and brought her hand up to her mouth, like she was going to start crying again.

  I put my hand on her shoulder. I was starting to warm to our role reversals. “I don’t know. I think he left town. He got away with it, so why would he come back after me?”

  Mickey frowned. “Carol never pressed charges?”

  “Well, she did, but then changed her mind. Quit her job. Moved away.”

  “So, Walbon got away with assault, and that’s why now you want to nail a bad guy.”

  “Mickey, I want someone, the right someone, to pay for Cassie’s murder. I’m involved, like I was before, but I can’t sit by this time and just hope for justice for my friend.”

  “It’s not very smart, but I get it. We should tell Brad about Walbon in any case.”

  Dad sighed. “You call us every day. If we don’t hear from you by seven every night, I call the police. Understood?”

  “Absolutely. Yes.” I took Brad’s business card out of my pocket and gave it to him.

  “Shit. I don’t like this at all.” Mom stood up. “Maybe we should go with you?”

  “You have work tomorrow.” I got up and hugged her. “It’ll be okay, Mom. Really. Go to bed now.”

  She squeezed me and then let me go. “Well, all right, after I put these dishes in the dishwasher. Why don’t you both stay here tonight.”

  Dad walked around the table and put his arm around me. “Yes, in fact, I insist that you stay here. You’ve had too much to drink to drive, and you both look spent.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Mickey and he gave an it’s-all-right-with-me shrug. “Okay, thanks, we will. I’ll stay in my old room on the futon, and Mickey can sleep on the fo
ldout in the den.”

  Mom smiled. “Whatever, honey.” My ears lit up again.

  “But we’ll do the dishes,” said Mickey. “Really, you’ve been so hospitable, let us clean up, and the two of you can go to bed.”

  “Thanks, good idea.” Dad gave Mickey a man-slap on his back and motioned toward Mom with his head toward the stairs.

  “Good night!” Mom whispered, with a wink, and they left us.

  We picked up the plates, bowls, and silverware, and took them into the kitchen. I started rinsing them in the sink, but Mickey just started putting everything right into the dishwasher. “Mickey! You have to rinse them first!”

  “No you don’t.” He took everything then, at warp speed, and piled it into the dishwasher, opened the cupboard beneath the sink, while scooting me to the side with his hip, found the dishwasher soap, poured it in the right place, closed the door, latched it, and turned the machine on. Then he grabbed a sponge and wiped down the counters, rinsed the sponge, wiped off the dining room table, and tossed the sponge into the sink. Then he grabbed me around my waist, pulled me to him, and kissed me hard. Any funny feelings I had about him earlier vanished. I threw my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist; he held me tightly, still kissing me, and walked into the den. I let go with my legs and Mickey gently pushed me onto the couch on my back, lay on top of me, and kept kissing me. He was grinding his pelvis into me, and I was giving it back. I flashed on Keira Knightly again, this time in Atonement when James McAvoy has sex with her against the wall in her family’s mansion. I don’t think I had ever wanted a man so much in my life. I mean Mickey, of course, not James McAvoy, though I think he’s way hot.

  We broke apart to start taking our clothes off.

  “This is nuts!” I whispered.

  “Why?” He was practically ripping his pants off, trying to undo the top button.

  “We’re in my parents’ house! They’ll hear us! They’ll come down for a drink of water, or something, and see us! And Dusty is asleep right over there!” I was struggling to undo my bra.

  “We’ll be very very quiet. We already know how to do that! And Dusty won’t mind.”

  I started giggling. We were both standing up now, hopping around on one foot and then the other, pulling our pants off, our underwear. “Should I pull out the couch, turn it into a bed?”

  “No time!” And Mickey had me down again, and you would have thought we hadn’t seen each other for about a hundred years, the way we held on tight, every place we could hold on to each other. But we weren’t so successful being quiet this time, and when I didn’t know anything anymore except the waves of bliss pulsing through my body, I let out a moan loud enough to wake up old Dusty, who answered me with a bark, and then Mickey emitted some sort of ecstatic yell. As we were falling asleep wrapped up in each other on that couch, I could have sworn I heard my parents laughing upstairs.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I woke up early, around six, extricated myself from Mickey, and stood there surveying the wreckage. I picked up clothing, piece by piece. Dusty had shifted position during the night and was curled up with my black jeans, which didn’t look very black anymore, as they were sporting a goodly amount of dog hair and a few traces of dog spittle. She stood up and wagged her tail, looking at me. I scratched her head. “Good morning, girl. Good girl.”

  I walked back over to the couch. “Psst!” Mickey didn’t move. “Mickey, hey!” I was speaking softly. He still didn’t move. I dropped the pile of clothes on his head. Still nothing. Then Dusty started licking the bottom of his right foot. That did it.

  Mickey sat up in a hurry. The clothes spilled over him, onto the floor. “What the…?” He looked up at me. “Were you licking my feet?”

  “You wish. Get up. I don’t want my parents to find us naked on this couch.” I reached out my arm to him.

  He swung his legs over the side of the couch, took my hand, and hauled himself up. “Good morning, beautiful.” He smiled. I smiled. We kissed.

  “There’s a shower in the downstairs bathroom, down the hall toward the back of the house. Dad uses it to clean up after gardening. There should be some clean towels in there.” I kissed him again, and he headed down the hallway. I picked up the clothes again and sorted them into his and mine on the couch. Then I grabbed my bundle and tiptoed upstairs to my old bedroom, went inside, and shut the door.

  Mom had turned this into her office once I had left home for good. It was cozy and neat. The walls were covered with family pictures, going back to her great grandparents. I walked over to a group of photographs of Nana that documented her life: a baby picture; one with her sister, their arms about each other’s shoulders; her wedding portrait; another when she must have been about sixty. My eyes lingered on this one, taking in her vigor and bright eyes. The last picture was one of Nana at Tall Oaks, sitting in the common area where the residents sing songs, make crafts, watch movies. She was in a wheelchair, but she was smiling and the flat palms of her hands were pressed together. She had been clapping to some music, I knew.

  I looked around at the other stuff in Mom’s office and smiled when I saw Nana’s old clock, sitting on top of some bookshelves. It was the one I retrieved from Tall Oaks after Nana died. Mom wanted to figure out how to get it going again. Dad told her to take it somewhere to have it fixed, or to have the moving parts replaced. But she was adamant about learning how to do it herself. It was a pretty cathedral clock, about eighteen inches high, with an elegantly painted face. Its “door” closed with a small brass latch and had clear glass in front of the face, with decorative, opaque glass beneath that, so that you couldn’t really see the pendulum.

  “Maybe if you stare at it long enough, then it will start.” I turned to see Mom standing in the doorway. “It’s worth a try, anyway.” She smiled.

  “Hi, Mom. I was just about to take a shower.”

  “Go ahead, honey. I’ll get coffee started. I don’t have to be at the hospital until eleven, so take your time.” She paused. “Annabelle, Nana could have been smothered. There was no autopsy. We didn’t ask for one. Her body had been slowly shutting down, and the doctor saw no reason to alert the coroner.”

  “Mom…”

  “Don’t put yourself in harm’s way. I don’t want to bury you, too.” She turned and headed downstairs. I hoped she didn’t find Mickey as naked as she had found me.

  About an hour later, all four of us were gathered around the dining room table again, cradling mugs of coffee and reading various sections of the paper. Dad had taken Dusty for a walk around the neighborhood, and Mom had an Entenmann’s coffee cake in the oven. I peeked up at all of them, so at ease with each other and with me, and in that moment, everything felt so good. Dad looked up at me and grinned. Then we both went back to the paper.

  While we were eating coffee cake and still reading, Mom disappeared for a bit, then showed up with a shoebox in hand. She put it on the table in front of me. I knew right away what was in it: Nana’s jewelry. I looked up at her. Dad and Mickey put the paper down.

  “I’ve been thinking about this box ever since last night,” she said. “You know Mother didn’t have much, but it just doesn’t make sense to keep these things hidden away. I guess I didn’t think I was ready to look at them, that they would make me too fucking sad.” She looked at Mickey. “Sorry, I swear like Chris Rock.” Mickey put his hand up in a little wave to signal it was okay with him. Mom sat down next to me and opened the box. “But now I want to look at them, and I want you to have something.”

  “Wow.” I pulled out a string of pearls, almost pink in color. “Turn around, Mom.” She shifted in her chair, and I brought the pearls around her neck and fastened them. She turned back, fingering the shiny beads.

  “I’m not sure they are the perfect accessory for your bathrobe, but they’re stunning on you.”

  Mom turned slightly to face Dad, and he smiled at her. “
Lovely.”

  There were a couple of bracelets, an amethyst pendant, a silver brooch, and about a half dozen pairs of earrings. Nana wasn’t flashy, and mostly she wore inexpensive jewelry. These were her “good” pieces. We delighted in each of them as we laid them out on the table. Then Mom pulled out a small box, and opened it. She took out a ring, and held it out to me. “I want you to have this, Bea.”

  My eyes immediately filled up, remembering that ring on Nana’s finger, and before I took it I threw my arms around Mom and hugged her close. Then I put the ring on the little finger of my right hand, which happened to be one of only a few of my fingers that didn’t already sport a ring. It fit perfectly. I knew it would. I used to try this ring on when I would visit Nana, before she moved to Tall Oaks. It was a gold initial ring, with two very tiny diamonds on either side of the oval where Nana’s initials were engraved. Her husband had given it to her for her thirtieth birthday; it had “ILYT” inside, for “I Love You Truly.” It had been one of Nana’s favorite possessions.

  I held up my hand to my father, and, softie that he is, his eyes had teared up, too, watching me. He just nodded. Then I held out my hand to Mickey, and he took it in both of his and examined the ring. “Nice. Very nice.”

  Mom was pulling the last few things out of the shoebox: a couple of watches, a ruby pin, and a gaudy beaded glasses case. She held this up and said, “Remember this?”

  I took it from her. “Yes. She used it all the time. It’s pretty raggedy now. I fingered the velvet case in my hands. “See how some of these things are coming through the other side? The material is really worn.” I fiddled with the baubles some more. “This piece is really loose.” I pulled it out and held it up.

  “Looks like a hatpin to me,” Mom said.

  The pin sported a two-inch pretty enamel oval, designed with rich blue and purple swirls surrounding a gold bird, which had a glittery diamond for an eye. It seemed to be pure gold. I turned it over and confirmed out loud, “Fourteen carats.” Then I looked closer at the back, and sat up straight. “Tarcelloni!” It was engraved with the brand name, as well as another scripty scribble I couldn’t make out.