1 Take the Monkeys and Run

by Karen Cantwell

  “Okay, girls, you sure know me.” I hugged each of them. “I’m just an old woman who likes to curl up warm and toasty in front of a good action flick.”

  I turned my attention to Howard. “So what do you have there? A hot chocolate machine?” I was joking, of course, because his bag wasn’t that big. It also was too small to hold a robe, which is what he usually got me, so my curiosity meter was reading high. He rocked back and forth on his heels and smiled in that way that let me know he was very proud of himself. He was looking especially handsome in a weathered sort of way—it looked like he hadn’t shaved in a day or two and the little flecks of gray peppered around the growth was looking mighty sexy. His wavy hair had a wind-blown look to it that would even make George Clooney jealous. The little lines were showing around his smiling eyes. I wasn’t going to smile back, though, because I didn’t want him to think everything was hunky dory. No sirree, Bob. He wasn’t going to just breeze in like nothing was wrong, bringing me presents and a pearly white smile, and think I was going to fall into his arms. Wimpy women do that. Not Sigourney-Weaver-from-Aliens-women.

  I set my mouth straight and firm, crossed my arms over my chest, and put forth my best sarcastic tone. “So, are you going to give it to me, or are you just going to stand there grinning like a goon?” He kept smiling. Okay. He was calling my bluff.

  “Mommy!” chided Amber. “That’s bad manners.” She was right. Bad Mommy. I guess even Sigourney had to mind her manners in front of young children.

  “I’m sorry baby,” I said. “You’re right.” I looked back at Howard, who was now looking even more proud of himself—had he coached her? Hmm.

  “Daddy,” I corrected myself, “are you going to give me my present sometime today, please?” Okay, so, just a little sarcasm—with a smile. I actually was getting very anxious to open the mysteriously small package. Jewelry came in small packages.

  “Yes, Mommy,” he continued playing the game, “I’ll give you the package, but you have to give me a kiss first.” Amber squealed, Bethany giggled, and Callie pretended to gag herself with her finger. I stared him down, unblinking. Just what kind of game was he playing? I thought women were supposed to be the complicated ones.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “I’m thinking, no kiss,” I said, with a frown. I wasn’t about to back down now.

  “No present,” he said, still grinning like a silly Cheshire. We both stared at each other. Actually, I glared, he grinned. I glared some more. He continued grinning. It was a real showdown. Minutes seemed to tick by. The girls quieted down and looked back and forth between us. Who would draw first? Finally, I got up out of my chair, walked to the kitchen, shoved my hand into the Halloween candy jar, and pulled out my ammo. I walked back and stood in front of Howard.

  “Put your hand out,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Just put it out.” He put his hand out and I very precisely placed a single Hershey’s Kiss into his hand.

  “Checkmate,” I said. The girls all giggled again, except Callie, who was too much of a teenager for all of the gross grown-up banter. She just rolled her eyes. She’d learned it from her father. Howard, conceding he’d lost the battle, handed over the bag. Now it was my turn to smile. I would consider giving him a real kiss if the gift was made of real gold. I grabbed the bag and pulled out a small box that could, in theory, hold a pair of earrings. Or maybe a bracelet. If I dared to dream big . . . maybe a diamond necklace. Probably a bracelet, I reasoned—the box was a little too big for earrings and too small for a necklace. The anticipation was electric. I slowly pulled off the shiny blue box top.

  Damn! It wasn’t a bracelet. It wasn’t earrings. It wasn’t gold. In fact, I didn’t know WHAT it was. It was black and blue and squiggly shaped and looked like it belonged in the twenty third century.

  “What is it?” I asked, pulling it from the box.

  “It’s a Bluetooth!”

  “A WHAT?”

  “A Bluetooth." He grinned from ear to ear, very happy with himself. "For your cell phone. Isn’t it great? You’re always complaining that it’s too dangerous to talk on your phone while you’re driving. Now you can go hands-free.”

  What is it with men and gadgets? I should have known a zebra doesn’t change its stripes. When had Howard ever bought me jewelry? Had I forgotten the time he’d given me a box cutter for our anniversary?

  “What do I do with it?” I asked. I already had some options in mind that involved his posterior and a lot of shoving.

  “You put it on your ear.”

  I thought sticking it IN his ear would be more fun. The urge to cry was sneaking up on me. But I had taken a vow. Thou shalt not be a wimp. I couldn’t slip. No crying. I also couldn’t go off on a ranting rampage since the girls were in the room with us. Basically I couldn’t be a wimp or a nag, so I had to suck it up and act like this alien device was the next best thing to a diamond pendant. Which I did. I did a little oohing and aahing and gave the girls hugs again while Howard spent quality time with my cell phone and new Bluetooth. Bethany and Amber brought me my bag of dinner—not one, but two soft tacos, a large Coke and nachos with cheese from Taco Loco. A feast fit for a queen. Callie popped Die Hard—my favorite Christmas movie—into the DVD player and the girls cuddled on the couch with hot chocolate while I munched down my Mexi-meal.

  When Howard had finished with my cell phone, he asked me to come to the dining room table so he could give me a hands-on demonstration. Yippee. I plopped down in a chair across from him, arms crossed in a definite attempt to project with my posture that I was not a happy camper. He got it.

  “You’re not very happy with me, are you?” he asked.

  “Oh, you think?”

  “I was hoping we would have a nice night together.”

  “Were you planning on staying?”

  The silent response was deafening.

  “Thought so. Well, I’ll just put this beautiful Bluetooth in bed next to me so I can be reminded of you and how hard you tried to make this such a nice night. Together.”

  More silence. Howard stared at me through somber eyes. There was a hint of darkness under them, which made me think he hadn’t been sleeping well. I realized, as we sat quietly watching each other, that there was a sadness in him that I had never seen before. A vulnerability that was unlike him. I started to feel guilty for being so hard on him. Maybe he did just need a little space. Maybe if I just gave him some time, he’d figure this all out. It didn’t make sense to me, but maybe it didn’t have to. Of course, I thought even further, maybe the space he needed involved sleeping space with another woman. Maybe he needed time to decide between me and some sleazy, trampy bimbo skank named Marjorie Smith. I went from feeling guilty to feeling homicidal. I got up from the table so fast and hard, I knocked over my chair. I pointed to my new birthday present.

  “Does that thing have instructions with it?” I asked

  Howard nodded.

  “Fine. Leave them. I can read. I’ll figure it out myself. I am capable, you know.” I stomped back to the living room and crawled back in with the girls to finish watching the movie.

  Howard disappeared upstairs, only to reappear a few minutes later with an armfull of clothes. Lovely. Just shove that knife into my heart a little further, then turn. He stopped and looked at us on the couch. Amber jumped off the couch, spilling her hot chocolate, as she ran to hug him.

  “Don’t go Daddy! Stay! It’s Mommy’s birthday.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie. I’ll come back another time,” he said. “I promise.”

  “When?” she asked

  “Soon.”

  “Let him go, Amber,” I said. “Daddy probably has better places to be. Like with his girlfriend.” Damn! That was not a good thing to say in front of the girls. I couldn’t help myself. Female hormones. They’ll strip me of control every time.

  Howard froze. With eyes as dark as a moonless night, a glare from Howard could be a scary thing. He was mot
ionless. I’d hit a nerve. Which nerve was questionable, but it was a nerve. Was it the girlfriend nerve?

  “Do you have a girlfriend, Daddy?” cried Bethany.

  “No!” he shot back at her. “I do NOT have a girlfriend.”

  “Well, that’s good,” sighed Amber, “because you already have a wife. That could be awkward.”

  I nearly choked on my nachos.

  “Yes, that would be,” said Howard. He glared at me again. “Can we talk? Outside?”

  “Nope.” I didn’t feel up for a confrontation. Even if I had started it. “It’s cold outside,” I said. “And it’s my birthday.” He rolled the ol’ eyes, turned and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

  “Great way to scare him off, Mom,” said Callie, storming off to her room. Just what I was thinking. But, of course, I justified to myself, HE was the one who’d left. Not me. Shouldn’t I be the one slamming doors?

  I stayed on the couch trying to watch the movie with Bethany and Amber until they fell asleep. “Trying” was the operative word because I couldn’t keep my mind off the fight with Howard. Finally, the girls drifted off to sleepy land. I covered Bethany with several blankets, carried Amber to her room, then crawled into my own achingly empty bed, making a determined effort to get some restful sleep myself. Alas, my effort was never fully achieved. I tossed all night coming in and out of dreams about Howard and various nameless, faceless sleazy, trampy bimbo skanks.

  Oddly enough, when my eyes popped open at 7:41 the next morning, I wasn’t thinking about Howard. I was thinking about monkeys. What was the deal with monkeys, anyway? With animal testing labs added to the mix, my concerns rose. I had watched that movie Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman. It taught me all I needed to know about monkeys and deadly epidemic diseases. The fate of mankind was possibly in serious jeopardy.

  I wanted answers, but how was I going to get them? Think, think, think. The only common denominator to the monkeys and the dead guy was the house. I needed to know more about that house. The problem was that I didn’t even know who owned the place. Even worse, I didn’t have the foggiest idea how to find out. That’s when I had it—the beautiful “Aha!” moment.

  I scrambled downstairs to the family computer and booted it up, praying for some time before the girls woke up. It would be easier to do this without them around. Finally, after what seemed like hours, the computer was on and ready to go. I went to my file of addresses and phone numbers. I remembered the good ol’ days when I had them in a little book and I’d have found the number and had it dialed already. So much for technology. I grabbed the phone and dialed the number I saw on the screen in front of me. I wasn’t a private investigator, but I was about to enlist the help of one. A deliciously adorable one, at that. This simple phone call would do more than help me decipher the mystery of House of Many Bones. It was also going to send Howard off the deep end.

  Chapter Seven

  THE PHONE RANG ONCE. THE phone rang twice. Three times. By the sixth ring, my palms were sweaty and I was hoping to get the answering machine. Ring eight had me in a panic—should I really be making this call? I was considering hanging up when smack dab in the middle of the ninth ring, the phone picked up. Whether I had reached human or machine, however, was questionable, because the answer was not immediate. Finally, a sound nearly animal in nature crossed the line.

  “Yeah?” came the dim, gravelly groan.

  “Colt?” I asked, praying now that I had the wrong number.

  “Yeah. It's Colt. Who cares?” He didn’t sound well.

  “It’s Barb. Are you okay? Is this a bad time?” I really wished I had hung up on ring eight.

  “Barb? Of course it’s a bad time. It’s—wait a minute, let me look . . . it’s five o’clock in the morning! On a Sunday!”

  I slapped my head. My bad.

  “Colt, I’m sorry! I forgot about the time difference. I’m sooooo sorry.”

  Colt Baron was a dear friend who currently resided in Santa Monica, California. He also served double duty as my ex-boyfriend and Howard’s ex-best friend. Howard, Colt, and I had been fast friends at college in San Diego. I’d started dating Howard during our sophomore year, but we broke up in the beginning of our senior year. Then Colt asked me out for more than just burritos at the Burrito Shack and he turned out to be a pretty fun boyfriend, too. Thinking guys were usually cool with those kinds of things, I had assumed that Howard would be fine with the new relationship. Not so much. He stopped talking to both of us. After graduation, we went our separate ways—Howard to an engineering job in Washington, DC; Colt two hours north to better surfing beaches; while I stayed in sunny San Diego, hoping for an upwardly mobile job in the not-so-exciting world of publishing.

  I had majored in Film and Television and minored in Literature, the dream being that I’d make it big in Hollywood someday, writing and directing my own films. I suffered, however, from supersized, monstrously massive self-doubt reinforced by my parents’ continual declarations that I should come back down to Earth and concentrate on a “more realistic” career. Hence, I found myself editing other people’s dreams at a local San Diego publishing house.

  Three years later, Howard and I met again at a friend’s wedding in Palos Verdes. I couldn’t resist those midnight eyes, wavy locks, and killer smile. He was just too yummy. We reconciled really nice that night, and somehow managed a long-distance romance for about six months until I finally packed up and moved to Arlington, Virginia to be closer to my honey. Meanwhile, I had stayed friends with Colt the surfer man, who rambled through different jobs up and down the California coast.

  Colt’s current profession was, conveniently for me, that of private investigator. I wasn’t exactly sure how he’d come upon this line of work—did he need to be licensed? What was the training involved? Did he just hang up a shingle and call himself a PI? Those were things I just didn’t know.

  When I thought of private investigators, two images came to mind: Humphrey Bogart’s Phillip Marlowe and Tom Selleck’s Magnum. Marlowe wasn’t Colt’s style, but Magnum was. I imagined Colt as a flaky sort of PI only shorter and without the mustache. Knowing Colt, though, he probably did hit the Santa Monica scene in a zippy little red Ferrari.

  I felt bad for waking him up, but I have to admit, I was having fun picturing him in bed. I knew for a fact that he slept in his birthday suit. “Colt, I’m sorry, I’ll call you back later . . .”

  “No, no. It’s fine. Just give me a minute,” he moaned. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes. Sort of. I mean, no one is sick or dead or anything. Well, someone is dead. I just don’t know who.”

  “What?” That woke him up. I visualized him sitting on the edge of his bed, very concerned about me. Nice image—still picturing the birthday suit. Nice birthday suit, from what I remembered.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “Tell me.”

  I relayed the whole miserable tale—the night of howls at House of Many Bones, the live monkeys, the rotting head, the dead monkeys, the officials sporting badges from Meadowland Labs. I was hesitant to tell him that Howard had moved out, but my need for sympathy was at peak levels, so I finally succumbed to the need for a “poor baby” and spilled the beans on that subject, as well.

  He was quiet when I finished, but I could hear breathing on the other end. “Wow,” he said finally. He was a man of many words.

  “‘Wow’? Is that all you have to say?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Can you help me?” I asked.

  “With the monkeys, the dead guy, or Howard? I’d be glad to come out there and give him the ol’ one-two.”

  “The dead guy?”

  “Howard.”

  I smiled. He still cared. I felt really guilty calling Colt like this. But I needed to know someone still loved me. And I really, really wanted help un-boggling my mind-boggling dead-things-in-the-creepy-house dilemma. REALLY.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want you to beat up Howard.” Well, maybe just a
little roughing up would be okay . . . “I want to know more about where these monkeys came from and why there are dead body parts in my neighborhood. It’s a wee-bit disconcerting, as you can imagine. I was hoping you could give me some pointers on how to do a little amateur investigating.”

  “A ‘wee-bit’? What are you, a leprechaun?”

  “Will you help me or not?”

  “Okay, here’s what I think,” he said. “I think you should stay out of it. It stinks.”

  “The smell was awful.”

  “No. I mean the whole thing stinks of something bad. Something you shouldn’t be getting involved in, Curly. Stay out of it.”

  The problem was, my decision was made. One thing about me, when I make a decision to do something, I do it. True enough, my decisions may be slow in coming, but once I’ve made one—watch out. I’m a pit bull. Besides, my motive was largely selfish—if I kept busy enough, I wouldn’t think about Howard every waking minute of the day. Colt, knowing my stubborn side the way he did, figured this out as soon as I went silent.

  “You’re going to do this anyway, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Okay. Well, I’d better lead you in the right direction, then. What are you looking for?”

  I spent nearly an hour on the phone with Colt while he listed ways I could locate relevant information. It actually didn’t appear to be all that hard and might even be fun given my more-than-average knack for nosiness. The last thing Colt said before hanging up was, “Tell Howard he’d better watch out. I may come out there and steal you for myself.”

  I laughed. Colt didn’t.

  The first item on my list was gathering more information on Nine Hundred White Willow Circle. Colt agreed it was very strange and probably not coincidental that the house had been vacant for so long. This meant real estate research on the Internet and possibly a trip to the county courthouse to determine ownership. He said the details would be fairly easy to find through tax records.