by Sofie Ryan
“Liz in an Aerosmith T-shirt?” Mac asked. “No. You’re kidding me, right?”
I shook my head, but I couldn’t stop grinning at the memory. “Oh, it gets better. We had great seats—some contact Liz had through the foundation. During ‘Walk This Way,’ Steven Tyler came down off the stage. He was maybe four feet away from us. Remember, Michelle and I were thirteen.” I laid a hand on my chest. “We could barely breathe, we were so excited.”
“I sense there’s more,” Mac said, the hint of a smile pulling at his mouth.
“He started dancing with Rose.”
“Rose?” His eyes darted from one side to the other.
“Uh-huh. With a whole lot of hip action.”
Mac started to laugh as he stretched an arm up over his head. “You’re telling me that Rose Jackson was dirty dancing with Steven Tyler at an Aerosmith concert?”
“There are photos,” I said. “And the band was filming the concert for some reason, so somewhere there’s video of Rose, as she put it, ‘getting down with Steven Tyler.’”
Mac was shaking with laughter now, one arm wrapped across his chest.
I held up a hand. “There’s more. You’ve seen that purple scarf she wears sometimes, with the silver Aztec design?”
He nodded.
“Tyler gave it to her. He slid it off his own neck and wrapped it—there’s no other word to use—seductively around her neck.”
Mac grinned at me. “Let me guess. You were scarred for life.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “No. That happened when he kissed her. And I don’t mean a peck on the cheek.”
Mac pulled a hand over his neck. “Don’t tell me Steven Tyler slipped Rose the—”
I held up a hand and shook my head. “No, no, no!”
“Well, that’s not so bad,” he said with a shrug. “Tyler was probably just trying to be nice to a fan.”
“Who frenched him,” I said, raising an eyebrow for emphasis.
Mac’s mouth opened and then closed once more without making a sound. He started laughing again.
I couldn’t help laughing again myself. “I can still see Steven Tyler’s expression,” I said.
“Hey, for all you know, maybe he liked it,” Mac said, his dark eyes gleaming with humor.
“Yeah, that’s the thing,” I said, making a face. “I’m pretty sure he did.”
“Oh, now I’m never going to listen to ‘Walk This Way’ quite the same way ever again.” He pushed away from the counter and straightened up.
“Do you have any grandparents-slash-crazy-senior-citizens in your family?” I asked, bending down for the bucket.
“I think Rose and Liz and Charlotte—and your grandmother—are pretty much one of a kind,” Mac said. The broom was leaning in the corner by the door to the hall, and he reached for it.
“I can do that,” I said.
“So can I,” he said.
I took the bucket of dirty water into the bathroom to dump it, realizing that he hadn’t actually answered my question. I wasn’t surprised. Mac was a master at deflecting personal questions, and I’d never pushed it.
My cell phone rang as I stepped back into the kitchen. It was Jess.
“Are you still working in the apartment?” she asked.
“We’re just about done,” I said, pulling my hair free from its ponytail.
“I have a shower curtain and a window curtain for the bathroom and a roman shade for the kitchen.”
“Aw, Jess, you’re an angel,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Hey, no problem.” I pictured her in her sewing room, her feet probably propped up on the table. “Have you eaten yet?”
“No,” I said. My stomach chose that moment to growl, reminding me that all I’d had was a banana for lunch.
“Mac still there?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. You guys stay where you are. I made pork and cabbage. I’ll bring some over, along with the curtains. I really wanna see how the place looks.”
A bowl of Jess’s pork and cabbage sounded a lot better than anything I would have come up with for supper.
“We’ll be here,” I said.
“See you in ten,” she said, ending the call.
I turned to Mac. “Jess is bringing supper. And unlike me, she can cook. Can you stay?”
He hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “Thanks. I’d like that.”
There was a round wooden pedestal table in the living room that we’d moved out of the kitchen. Mac and I each grabbed an end and we set it back in the corner.
“What are you going to do with this when Rose moves in?” Mac asked. He tipped his head to one side and studied the table. At the moment it was painted a muddy shade of brown.
“Take it back to the shop and strip it,” I said over my shoulder as I headed back into the living room for the folding chairs that had been doubling as kitchen chairs.
“What are you thinking about for a finish?” he asked, coming to the doorway to take two of the chairs from me.
“I’m thinking a whitewash if the wood is in decent condition.”
He nodded slowly.
“Remember those white chairs we got at that yard sale in the fall? The ones with the cat-scratched fabric seats?”
“They smelled like cigarette smoke.”
I nodded. “I’m thinking of painting them lavender and getting Jess to make me new seats in some darker purple fabric.”
“That could work.”
I rinsed my cloth in the sink and wiped a fine layer of dust off the top of the table.
“I was holding on to this for Jess,” I said. “She wanted it for the new shop, but now that North Landing is pretty much dead, there won’t be a new shop.”
“You really think the development isn’t going to happen?” Mac asked. He moved around the kitchen, picking up small bits of wood we’d discarded as shims when we were installing the cupboards.
“It’ll be months before Lily’s estate is settled.”
“True, but everything probably goes to her mother. She could sign an agreement to sell to the developer when the property is finally hers.”
“She could,” I said, taking the cloth back to the sink to shake it out.
“But you don’t think she will.”
I looked at him over my shoulder. “Lily was so against selling. I don’t think Caroline will do it. They are . . . were very close.” I hung the wet cloth over the tap and turned, leaning against the counter. “What do you think about the whole proposal? Do you think it’s a good idea? Is it sound financially?”
It occurred to me that I could have—maybe should have—asked Mac for his thoughts sooner. He had been a financial adviser for many years before he’d decided he’d rather sail and make things with his hands.
“I just saw a preliminary prospectus,” he said, bending down to pick up two thin shims that had somehow slid into the living room. “But what I saw looks good.” He straightened up.
“But?” I said.
He exhaled quietly and turned the two scraps of wood over in his hands. “The research seems to be solid. There’s definitely an interest in development on the scale West is proposing. His financing is solid.”
I sensed a little hesitation. “But?”
“West’s carrying a lot of debt for a small company. If this deal falls through, it could break him.” Mac shrugged. “Those are just my thoughts based on a quick read-through of the simplified prospectus. I could be wrong.”
But he probably wasn’t. When Mac gave his opinion, it was after he’d taken the time to think things through.
Jess tapped on the door then so I didn’t have a chance to say anything. She had a gray garment bag in one hand and a red insulated cooler in the other. Mac took the cooler and I grabbed the garment bag, taking it into the bathro
om and hanging it over the shower rod because there really wasn’t anywhere else to put it.
“The blind is out in my car.” Jess gestured at the red bag. “The food and everything you need is inside,” she said. She waved her hand in the direction of the hall. “I’ll just go get the blind and we can eat.”
Right on cue my stomach growled.
Jess laughed. “I’ll hurry.”
I unzippered the top of the insulated cooler. She’d brought everything—bowls and forks, three small wineglasses and a huge stoneware crock of her pork and cabbage. Tucked in the outside pocket of the bag was a small bottle of apple cider.
Mac opened the cider and poured a glass for each of us while I dished out the pork and cabbage. It was still hot.
“It smells good,” Mac said as he moved behind me with the glasses.
“Thank you,” Jess said from the doorway. She set the blind on the counter and kicked off her boots. “Oh, this looks nice,” she said approvingly, looking around the room.
“Thanks,” I said.
She leaned around the living room doorway. “Umm, I like that color on the walls.”
The living room, bathroom and bedroom were a creamy, buttery shade that warmed the small rooms.
“That’s because you picked it out,” I teased.
“And I do have good taste,” she retorted.
She shook off her coat and hung it over the back of the chair. “Let’s eat,” she said.
The meat and sweet cabbage in a spicy sauce was as delicious as I’d promised Mac it would be. About halfway through the meal, Jess ran her hand over the tabletop.
“I hate it, but you might as well sell this table,” she said with a sigh. “There’s no way North Landing is going to happen now.”
I turned to her, my spoon halfway between the bowl and my mouth. “What do you mean by ‘now’? Has something happened?”
She looked from Mac to me. “Right. You’ve been working here all day, so you haven’t heard.”
“Heard what?” I asked. I felt the bottom fall out of my stomach, as though I’d just rolled over the top of a roller coaster. I knew what she was going to say before she spoke.
“Lily’s death has officially been called a homicide.”
I rubbed the space between my eyes with two fingers. “You know what this means, don’t you?” I said.
Jess looked confused. “No,” she said.
Mac gave me a sympathetic smile. “It means the Angels are going to be spreading their wings.”
Chapter 6
I was lying on the couch with Elvis sprawled across my chest, trying to read—and failing because someone’s big, furry head kept getting in the way—when my cell phone rang later that evening. I put the book on the floor and reached for the phone while Elvis raised his head and glared at me.
“You could always go lie somewhere else,” I said.
He narrowed his green eyes at me and flopped back down again.
It was Nick on the phone. “Hi,” he said. “Am I taking you away from anything important?”
I folded one arm behind my head. “No. I’m just basically being a lounge chair for a cat. What’s up?”
I heard him exhale slowly and pictured him swiping a hand over his chin. “I didn’t know if you’d heard: Lily’s death has been ruled a homicide.”
“I know,” I said. “Jess told me.” I’d been trying not to think about what she’d said, but I hadn’t really succeeded. “Do you think it could have anything to do with the development proposal?”
“That’s not really my job,” he said. “That’s Michelle’s department.”
Elvis yawned and rolled partway onto his side.
“I know,” I said. “But you have to have an opinion. C’mon, Nick. I’m not going to tell anybody.”
He sighed. “At this point I don’t know.”
Neither one of us said anything for a moment. “Someone pushed her down those stairs,” I said after a moment of silence.
“You know I can’t tell you that,” Nick said.
“I didn’t ask you anything,” I said, sliding up into a halfway-sitting position. That was too much moving around for Elvis. He jumped down to the floor and stalked away, flicking his tail at me because he didn’t have fingers. “And I’m not going to repeat any conversation we have. I’m just saying, hypothetically”—I put extra emphasis on the last word—“someone must have pushed her.”
“Hypothetically, yes,” Nick said dryly.
I stretched out one leg and then the other. “But whoever it was didn’t just come up behind her and give her a shove. Hypothetically.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked, and I could hear a note of caution in his voice.
“She was lying on her left side. If she’d been starting down the steps and someone had given her a push, she most likely would have landed on her right side.”
For a moment he didn’t say anything. When he did finally speak, it was just one word. “Because?”
I grabbed a pillow and stuffed it behind my back. “Lily went up and down those steps a dozen times a day. So she probably didn’t use the railing. I go up and down the stairs at the shop easily that many times in a day, and I know I don’t.”
“Okay,” he said.
“If someone had pushed Lily, her instinct would be to grab for the railing. It’s on the left side. If she couldn’t get her balance, she’d be leading with her right side as she fell and she’d land on that side. Which she didn’t.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Someone hit her,” I said slowly, the idea just occurring to me, making my heart sink. “She was at the top of the stairs. She was turning, and whoever killed her hit her on the back of the head. The momentum and the fact that she wasn’t turned completely around means that she would most likely have ended up landing on her left side.”
I waited for Nick to say no, to tell me I was wrong.
He didn’t.
“But how do you know she didn’t just hit her head on one of the steps?” I asked. I knew Nick was very good at his job, and if he said Lily’s death was murder, then it was. I just didn’t want it to be. I hated to think that the last moments of her life were filled with fear.
Nick let out another breath. Was he stretching his arms up over his head? I wondered. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s say someone did hit Lily over the head—and I’m not saying that’s what happened, just to be clear.”
“I know,” I said, nodding even though he couldn’t see me.
“The injury wouldn’t be up in the same place as it would be if she’d fallen, and it wouldn’t look the same.”
“What do you mean it wouldn’t be in the same place?” I asked.
“Did you take any anatomy classes?” Nick asked.
“In high school.”
“So you don’t know any of the bones in the skull.”
“Yes, I do,” I said a little indignantly.
My high school biology teacher had had a full-size skeleton in the lab that he’d named Clyde, which we’d all thought was made of some incredibly realistic plastic or resin. There was a bit of an uproar my senior year when it came out that Clyde had been a real person and an alumnus of the school—and really had been named Clyde.
I’d always liked Clyde. Once I’d even done the Macarena with him when the teacher was out of the room.
I pictured the skeleton’s bony head now. “The bone in the front where the forehead is, that’s the frontal bone,” I said. “The bottom part of the jaw is the mandible. The top of the head and the upper part of the back of the head are all parietal bone. And below that is the occipital bone.”
“Very good,” he said.
I couldn’t help smiling as though I’d just gotten a gold star from the teacher. “Thank you.”
“If Lily had slipped and hit her h
ead, we’d expect to see an injury where the occipital bone and temporal bone meet or a bit above that, but not a lot above that area.” He didn’t even bother to say “hypothetically.”
“So if the injury was higher than that, it suggests someone hit her,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“Okay, but you said the injury wouldn’t look the same,” I said. “What do you mean?”
“Did you ever hit a piñata with a baseball bat?”
“Liam’s tenth birthday party. Samurai Pizza Cats.”
I heard something fall in the bedroom. I was guessing that Elvis had jumped up onto the small table I kept beside the bed and had nosed one of my books onto the floor. He’d done that before when he felt my attention was focused somewhere other than on him.
“Pizza what?” Nick asked.
“Samurai Pizza Cats. They were three cyborg cats—”
“Let me guess,” he interjected. “And they liked pizza.”
“Close,” I said. “They worked in a pizzeria.”
“Of course. How could I have missed that?” Nick laughed then. “I can’t wait until the next time I see Liam.” He cleared his throat. “When you swing, the end of the bat is moving faster than the part closer to your hands.”
“Right.” I heard what was probably another book hit the floor in the bedroom.
“So when it makes contact with the piñata, it does more damage than the shaft does farther down the length of the bat.”
“Because it has more momentum.”
“Exactly.”
I couldn’t say anything for a moment as I tried not to think about the fact that we were really talking about Lily and not a papier-mâché container shaped like a cat.
“You okay?” Nick asked.
“Uh-huh.” I swallowed down the lump that had suddenly tightened in my throat. “Help Michelle catch whoever did this, please?” I whispered.
“I will,” he promised.
I cleared my throat. “Nick, you know that Rose and your mother and—”
“I know.” I could hear a combination of frustration and resignation in his voice. “I’m beating my head against the wall, thinking I can find a way to convince them to stay out of this—aren’t I?”
