“Sorry.”
“When you hooked up with Jessie, after not seeing him for the better part of a decade; and let’s not forget that if I hadn’t mentioned his name you probably never would have looked him up on MySpace, did I throw it in your face?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, maybe I threw it in your face, but did I bring Mom into it?”
“No, but that was more because of all the confusion surrounding the whole situation.” She started counting off events on her perfectly manicured fingers. “If you will recall, Jessie and I got back together just when Mom’s friend Bernie woke up dead. You were, and still are, between jobs. Your roommate Suzi moved out, her brother, evidently your new boyfriend, moved in. You still haven’t shared that fact with any of the family, other than me. Actually, to be more precise, you haven’t told anyone that AJ moved in, nor have you told anybody that he is your boyfriend.” Her perfectly shaped brows danced around on her forehead.
She was enjoying her review of the last few days. My sister has a talent for these things.
I had to set the record straight, and maybe interrupt her train of thought. If my luck was holding, and God knows I got lucky last night, I could switch subjects without her ever noticing. It doesn’t happen often, but it was worth a shot, “Not quite accurate, Liam knows.”
Even I admit that my attempt didn’t pack the wallop of a flea bite on a buffalo’s bum, but think about it, I’ve recently been using my energy for things more important than mental skirmishes with my beloved, if annoying, sister.
If she noticed the attempt to pitch her off the path, it didn’t slow her down. She continued, “That was an accident. Not my fault that goofy Liam went from the irresponsible little brother we all know and love to a man madly in love with a serene woman, who happens to be gorgeous and who has won over the hearts and minds of everyone in the family, and not only that, but she comes to us with a child, a ready made family for Liam, another blessing for us all.”
She looked at me as if I didn’t have the brains God gave a flat rock, “Remember? We were in panic mode since they had planned to marry just days from now. Thank God they pushed the date back a bit. I thought Mom was going to suffer apoplexy since they’ve only known each other about a minute and a half. They came over to announce their surprise engagement and figured out that you had a new roommate. You didn’t really tell them anything. You weren’t honest and forthright. You got caught.”
She leaned in for the kill, “And to top it all off, you dreamed up not one, not two, but three new business opportunities, none of them making much money yet, all of them beyond bizarre, and you were dumb enough to quit your job when you didn’t know if you could generate a living wage.”
I thought that last hurtful comment would wrap it up. I was wrong.
With added enthusiasm she continued, “Oh, and let’s not forget what you told some unbelievably good looking cop, at least your claim is that he’s good looking, I’ve not seen him yet. Anyway, you tell a cop that you think that multiple deaths that you are aware of, and possibly connected to, are connected to each other in some convoluted way. Did it dawn on you there’s a chance you have a whole task force watching your every move? They probably think you’re some whacked out serial killer. I bet they had a good time watching you last night! You let that cop in your apartment. The place is probably wired for sound and video.”
I shook my head and gave her a nervous laugh. Besides the whole creeped out thing, the thought of a group of cops sitting outside my apartment last night, in some van with all the widows blacked out, and a florist logo on the side, was unnerving. Then, worse, the thought of those cops inside the van watching little monitors, hooked up to a video camera, aimed at my bed, or worse, the living room couch, was causing me to give serious consideration to having a panic attack. Although I’ve never actually had a panic attack, realistically, this would be a good time to start.
My wee little brain just couldn’t go there, so, I tried to fling myself back onto a safer track, “Give me a break. Cops don’t do things like that. They’d need a warrant or something.”
My sister’s responses can be quick and still appear to be well thought out, especially if she is getting the reaction she wants, “Only if they planned on using the information in court. You don’t know. This could be a rogue cop. He could be working on his own because he thinks you killed his partner.”
“Right Teagan, I’ve got the look of a serial killer written all over me.”
“You dingleberry, if a serial killer looked like a serial killer, they wouldn’t be able to kill more than one person. The cops would swoop down and grab them. Serial killers, good serial killers, look just like you and me.”
I had to fight back, it’s a sister thing, besides, I was on edge about the cops sitting in the van thing and trying not to imagine exactly what they had seen. What about when I laughed and told AJ that I’d been trying for weeks to become flexible enough to get my foot behind my head? Were they watching when he challenged me to prove it? I’m the kind of girl that can’t leave a challenge unmet, without even warming up or anything I’d grabbed my ankle and…
Teagan interrupted my thought, “What’s wrong with you? You look like you just, well, you look like, I’m not sure what you look like, I’ve never seen you look that way before.”
I tried to go back to the subject I’d been trying to change, because it suddenly seemed much more benign, which is just pathetic. It’s easier to think about being intimately involved with a serial killer, than discussing how intimately I’m becoming involved with AJ.
I’m beginning to think that there is the tiniest possibility that I’m just a tad dysfunctional.
I countered with, “Teagan, I thought female serial killers only killed their cheating husbands and they mostly poisoned them.”
“What?”
“Seems to me there are lots of black widow type female serial killers, and maybe some in the medical field that are helping sick people to a better place a little sooner than God had intended, but I don’t remember hearing much about your average, every day, female serial killer. There was that one movie, but other than that, not so much.”
Teagan rolled her eyes, “First of all, a woman that kills her husband, a black widow, isn’t a serial murderer. I don’t think. As for not hearing a lot about female serial murderers, that would be my point. You don’t hear about them, but they could be sitting next to you while you’re getting a pedicure -- you need one badly by the way – and you would never know.”
“Teagan, leave my hairy toes out of this. Besides, I shaved them when I was in the shower last night, so my feet look fine. Don’t start with my feet. May I remind you that although you have great boobage, my toe cleavage is the envy of foot models far and wide. Can we get back to the subject at hand?”
“Sure Cara, you, in your infinite wisdom, told a cop that you think that all things good and bad come in threes. And then you told him that in the very recent past you have come across three dead people.”
“You make it sound like I stepped over them. That wasn’t what happened and that wasn’t what I said. All I said was that I am aware of three people that have died.”
“No, what you said was that you were going to collect $100,000 for solving a murder, we’ll call that case number one. You are aware of a second case, she was Mom’s best friend. Aware of a third case; he was a cop for God’s sake! Worse than that, he was the partner of the cop you were talking to. Cara, don’t you ever watch TV? You aren’t supposed to talk to the cops. Ever.”
“You’ve just let yourself go to some parallel reality Teagan. There’s only one case, and the sum total of my knowledge about that one case is what I read online. I decided a $100,000 reward would come in handy. If every person in this country wanting a large pile of money to fall from the sky into their lap, is guilty of a crime, there would be about six people not in jail. When it comes to this case, as you call it, I don’t know the people; I’ve never met the peo
ple. Chances are good I never will meet the people, or collect a reward.”
I was trying for a tone that indicated I was earnest, when actually, panic would have been a better description. I continued, “The second case, as you put it, isn’t even for sure a murder. Bernie was older than dirt, and just because the cops want to take another look around Bernie’s place, doesn’t mean she was murdered. As for the cop, or case number three, as you put it, they said he was in a car crash. No one is looking at it as anything other than a horrible accident. Besides, he was a retired cop, forced medical retirement, so he didn’t technically have a partner. I never said they were cases and I never said they were connected.”
“That isn’t true. You told the cop, his name is Joe, right? You told Joe-the-cop that you thought they were connected.”
“No, what I told Joe was that he needed to relax and let information come to him. That there could be links and connections found in just about everything in life. It’s the cosmic equivalent to Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon or whatever the hell that is. I happened to notice a stupid article in the paper about Lily Ivy-Rosenbloom, the $100,000 case. We have no connection. Of course I know Bernie, she’s a good friend of Mom’s, but she has no connection to Rosenbloom, other than the fact that I’d read about Rosenbloom in the paper. Then because we were helping Mom go through Bernie’s stuff, our priest, your 5th grade crush..”
Teagan interrupted, “6th grade.”
“Sorry, the family priest, your 6th grade crush, asked if I would do the same for one of his parishioners, Louis. That parishioner happened to be a retired cop and happens to be the ex-partner of Joe. That hardly makes me a serial murderer.”
“All that’s true, but you’re the one that pointed out to Joe-the-cop that all three of the deaths were linked.”
I snapped, “No, no I didn’t! What I said was that if you look at enough of the minutia of life, you’re going to find coincidences and similarities. It isn’t my fault that all three of them had car tags that had three of the same letters.”
“You don’t find that odd?”
“I find it interesting.”
“Of all the tag combinations out there, three people are dead within days of each other, and all three of them have a car tag that has three of the same letters, and all three of them come to your attention. You notice, and then advertise to the cops, that there are matching letters on the car tags of three people you claim you aren’t involved with. Cara, you don’t think anyone, not the cops, not the serial murderer, not Mom, is going to notice?”
“Well, damn.”
“And Cara, you can bet everything you own that you’re not only on this cop’s radar, but your little blip is getting louder and louder. Joe-the-cop even told you that his other little cop friends think that you’re onto something.”
“Well, double-damn!”
“You know good and well that if you’re standing in an elevator and someone passes gas, it’s usually the guy that says ‘Yuck, who did that?’ that did it. The cops are probably figuring you figured out the license plate thing because you killed them all. They don’t know you. They don’t know that you aren’t capable of killing anyone.”
I sounded kind of pathetic, “I’m really not.”
“Cara, I, of all people, know you’re not capable of murder. If you were, I’d probably be dead.”
I had to smile, “True.”
“And since the entire task force, because they’ve probably formed one by now, and potentially the entire police force, could have intimate knowledge of just what happened here last night, remembering that your brother is on that same police force, perhaps you should share all the details with your favorite sister before it gets back to Mom.”
I couldn’t help it; I let out an audible sigh. What’s up with that?
“Think about it Cara, I have the right and responsibility of knowing every detail of your life first. That’s just how it works with us. Not only am I your favorite, I’m the one that will run interference when Mom gets a whiff of this. And you know she will.”
“Dear Lord.” My shoulders sunk as I walked toward the kitchen. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
Teagan followed me into the kitchen, never even taking a breath, she continued, “And by the way, knowing what I now know, and wanting to preserve my retinas, here is the emergency house key. I don’t want to walk in on something that would be hard to erase from my memory banks. More importantly, the key is actually Mom’s, and I’m not the one that’s going to hand it back to her so that she can walk in on something that… I can’t even think about that happening. I don’t want any part of it.” She pulled a face and shook her head, “And, of course, if you don’t give the key back, she’ll wonder why.”
Life gets really complicated when you have seven brothers and sisters, involved parents, and a family that is described as close and involved, or dysfunctional and enabling, depending on one’s vantage point.
I got out my favorite teapot. Making us each a cup of tea was not going to suffice. I’m Irish. There’s nothing a good cup of tea won’t make better. Reality is, this time, it could take a whole pot.
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