“Stop that,” he commanded. Mary Grace’s eyes went back to his face. She wanted to lick her lips just to see if-
“Stop already,” Brogan said agonizingly and firmly grasped her upper arms. He lifted her easily up and plopped her down on the passenger seat.
Mary Grace fanned herself with her jersey, wishing she had a pitcher of ice water to pour down her breasts and especially down her pants. She didn’t want to think about the part where Brogan had derogatorily asked himself, ‘What the hell am I doing?’ as if he didn’t know. He was a grown man. He was the detective investigating who was out to make Mary Grace a little obscure footnote in the annals of history. He was a really good kisser. And what he had been doing with his hands was probably outlawed in 23 states.
Struggling for control she yanked the jersey over her head and caught one of her earrings painfully. “Son of a-” she grumbled. When her head reappeared Brogan was starting the car and backing out, trying very hard not to look at her. His face was a steely, as stiff as Superman crushing a piece of coal for Lois Lane, as hard as a trigonometry test the day after Spring Break. Oh, my potty mind, she lamented silently.
Brogan told her in a stiff voice to buckle up. Mary Grace complied and opened her window for a dash of warm air. He drove her to Jack Covington’s house or at least a block up from the house where Callie’s Mazda Miata was parked peacefully under the oak tree. Birds had crapped all over the convertible top and left their immutable presence known.
As Mary Grace unbuckled herself, Brogan said, “Uh, about before-”
Mary Grace set her jaw. “Yes, I know. I’m a great girl. Really stacked and all, but can we have sex and then just be friends, right?” She got out of the car and worked hard not to slam the door. She came around to the sidewalk and tried to look at him without actually looking at him. It wasn’t easy.
Brogan stared at Mary Grace. Finally, he said, “Hell, no. I don’t want to be your friend. I want to play pickle-me-tickle me. The horizontal bop. The old in-and-out. I want to get down and dirty with you. I want to get biblical with you.” He hissed the last words at her like he was committing a sin.
All Mary Grace could think was, Wow, he doesn’t want to be my friend.
“But,” he growled. “Dammit, I’ve known you about nine days and for eight of those days I thought you were just another flake. I don’t want to make a mistake here. I don’t want to screw things up.”
Mary Grace bent down and looked Brogan in the eye. Definitely puppy-dog eyes with a hint of something dangerous. “I thought that was exactly what we wanted to do.”
Brogan’s eyes flashed with an incendiary fire that would have instantly consumed Yellowstone National Park. Then he said an explicitly dirty word and drove off.
Dangling Callie’s keys in her hand, Mary Grace went to the driver’s side of the Miata. All the lights on the street were dark and only the front porch light shone on Jack’s house. He was, undoubtedly, sleeping the sleep of the innocent, if only slightly obsessed, inside his house. Then Mary Grace found the note under the windshield wipers.
And she repeated the same dirty word Brogan had said, only minutes before.
Chapter Eight – Sunday, June 19th – Monday, June 20th
Combining ½ cup of urine with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a covered jar for 24 hours will produce a solution that will reduce freckles. Apply sparingly twice a day until freckles have faded. Do not consume because it simply tastes awful. – Aunt Piadora’s Beauty Hints
When Mary Grace drove herself to her cottage in Callie’s Miata, she found a message waiting for her. From Jack Covington. The same Jack who had a portrait in his garage/studio that resembled Mary Grace’s hooters. There was also a message from her mother that had been left from Miami’s airport en route to saving her daughter from certain death, dirty underwear, and mold in the refrigerator, but Mary Grace disregarded that one. There was a hang-up with ten seconds of someone breathing heavily into the phone, but not so heavily that Mary Grace wanted to check Caller ID to see who it was. She figured it was a wrong number and the person stood there thinking about which number he’d misdialed. Also Mary Grace got a lot of calls for a porn shop two miles away because the number was one digit off from hers. They asked for stuff with names that made her cringe.
In any case, Jack’s message was simple. “Mary Grace, Jack here.” Pause. “Take some time off.” Pause. Sigh. Pause. “I’ll get Trey on the Parham account.” Pause. Papers rustling. Discomfort radiating over the lines. “He’ll call you.” Then there was an abrupt click.
“Damn,” Mary Grace muttered. “Jack knows about his house. He doesn’t even want me to come to the office to pick up my stuff.” She jabbed the erase button on her answering machine. “I’ll probably get my stuff via UPS. Poodoo.”
Mary Grace fished the note from the Miata out of her jeans pocket and strode into her living room. It was a simple cream colored piece of stationary. The top had a letterhead that said, ‘Goose,’ with a pen and ink drawing of a goose headed north or perhaps south in search of either nookie or warm weather. The bottom had a simple warning, ‘Beware of the browned eyed one.’
“What the f-” she cut herself off before she dropped an F-bomb. Because Ghita Castilla was in town, the likelihood of her hearing her daughter’s voice uttering the most forbidden swearword had increased by a factor of one hundred. Ghita had super mother hearing. With freakish intuition or radiation mutated hearing, she could hear Mary Grace sneaking out of the house, doing a half-assed job on the dishes, and speaking forbidden words from up to miles away. And simply because Mary Grace was twenty-eight and out of her mother’s house for six years didn’t mean that Ghita couldn’t twist an ear like a professional, medieval, sadistic torturer.
“If someone’s going to warn me,” Mary Grace complained instead. “Why not say, ‘It’s bleeping John J. Jinglehimmer-Smith. Here’s his address. Also he thinks you’re the Anti-Christ and your feet smell like rotten eggs. Not to mention that you wore white after Labor Day last year and everyone talked about you mixing silk with cotton. That’s why he wants to kill you.’”
Mary Grace threw the note down on her floor with inclusive disgust. She wrapped her arms around her chest and stared out the window. Life was going on as usual outside. The birds were singing. The clouds were floating past. Women were shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue and Abercrombie & Fitch at the Galleria.
Me? I’m hiding in my house. My best friend is in the hospital. I made out with a cop who almost had in his hand in my pants. Someone wants to kill me. Four times already. People are looking at me funny. I’m missing good sales on shoes and culottes. She threw herself onto her couch and moaned. “My life is turning into a big bowl of brown colored crap.”
Suddenly, Mary Grace had a strong urge to take control, to make a difference in her life, and in this situation. She wasn’t powerless. It was like opening up the Thanksgiving Day newspaper and sorting through Black Friday’s sales ads. It was a big pile, but Mary Grace had a very sharp pair of scissors and a lot of determination.
The note caught her eye. The letterhead. She retrieved the single sheet of paper and studied it. Goose. A flying goose. A bird feed store? Flight school? Fertilizer supply? She got up and went into her kitchen where a little nook held her answering machine and the yellow pages. She plunked the heavy book onto the table and fingered the business pages. She turned to the ‘g’s and muttered, “Goode Times Tattoo. Goodwill. Goodyear. Goody Two Shoes & Repair. Goose Creek Association. Gore’s Service Company. No plain old goose.”
Mary Grace chewed on her nails. When she realized what she was doing she stopped. I need a manicure. Also I need a brain implant. Should I tell Brogan about the note? He-ey. Abruptly, Mary Grace stood up straight. Brogan had brown eyes. And he was helpful in taking my shirt off and making my panties wet. Why would someone warn me about him?
Shaking her head, Mary Grace threw the note down in disgust again. “Why not just use someone’s name? George S. Twimble
butt is going to whack you at midnight with the candlestick in the library and steal your good makeup.” Her eyes settled on her laptop sitting on the countertop. Mary Grace had one more idea before she would subject herself to breaking and entering into Trey Kennebrew’s house. She flipped the lid open and used the mouse to connect her to the Internet. There she did a Google search for goose.
“Twenty-five million hits,” she muttered irately. “Starting with a definition from Wikipedia. Muy helpful.” She tapped keys again and searched for goose and Texas. The search results narrowed to just about one million. Most of the first page dealt with goose hunting in the state of Texas. One was a bed and breakfast near Austin, Texas. She clicked on that one but the logo was wrong. Mary Grace looked at the logo on the sheet of paper again. “No address. No phone number. What kind of stupid publicist designed this?”
Not so patiently, she clicked through link after link and finally on the fourth page of her search, hit pay dirt. Goose Vineyards. The goose on the website was similar to the logo on the note. The address was northern central Texas. It sat about sixty miles to the west of Dallas/Fort Worth. Mary Grace studied the website. It was a simple one. Here’s our place. We grow grapes and sell wines. Come buy our stuff. Bring your credit card.
Was the note a warning from Deep Throat Mommy? Was she connected to the winery? If that was the case, then what did it have to do with someone wanting to end Mary Grace’s existence? And did one of the three people who had been at Pictographs have a connection to the winery, too?
Mary Grace looked outside. It was starting to get dark and the crickets were in an uproar. She saw Callie’s Miata keys on the kitchen table and knew Callie wouldn’t mind if she borrowed it. Furthermore, Callie wouldn’t be caring much about anything for a few days courtesy of a morphine drip.
Ever organized Mary Grace used her laptop to make a list on Microsoft Word:
Visit Goose Winery and find out connection to person who warned me.
Call Brogan and tell him what I did.
Visit Callie.
Pick up another tube of mascara. (Isn’t Chanel on sale this week?)
Tell Ma I joined a cult in South America.
Break into Trey’s house and ascertain he’s only a twenty-something nerd with a collection of vintage pocket protectors.
Mary Grace deleted the last one and added instead:
Use all my wiles to persuade my invitation into Trey’s house so that I am doing nothing illegal.
She chewed on her fingernail again until she realized she was nearly to the quick on her index finger. Then she added:
Check out Lolita Lewis. See why she’s still using powder blue eye shadow when it’s patently obvious that it’s been out of fashion for years.
Elude Ma.
Disconnect answering machine.
Find Deep Throat Mommy and her little baby, too.
Confront Jack about his portrait subject matter without revealing that I was in his garage today. That is, if he doesn’t already know. Also find out why he was at Pictographs that night.
“Oh yeah,” Mary Grace muttered ungracefully. “I really need some tampons before the end of the month.” She stopped abruptly. “Also I need condoms. You know, just in case. Got to be a Girl Scout. Well, a very naughty Girl Scout anyway.” Then she bit her lip and added to her list:
Figure out exactly why I don’t want to go to Brogan with this. (Is it because he almost had his hand in my panties and his hands on both of my breasts or because he didn’t believe me the first time or because I don’t want to hear that we’re suddenly good buddies now? Oh, fargleburps.)
•
It was nearly midmorning when Mary Grace pulled into the Goose Winery. It didn’t exactly look like a winery. There were several metal buildings that could have been built the day before or a decade before. There was a large sign over the gate with the same goose on the logo hand-painted on. The website was listed below the flying goose. Several cars were parked in a plain gravel lot. And finally rows of what looked like neatly arranged bushes on supports to Mary Grace disappeared over rolling hills.
Oh, she thought with comprehension. Those are grape vines. I sort of expected to see Lucy and Ethel wearing bandanas, stomping on grapes, causing mass hysteria.
Someone tapped on Mary Grace’s window. She almost plotzed and then remembered under her dress she was wearing her camouflaged string bikini bra and matching bootie shorts. Can’t mess up the camo lingerie. After all, I might have to go undercover.
“If you’re here for the tour,” the man said through the window. “It’s just starting in that building. Bill’s in charge.” He pointed to the largest metal building and smiled at her. Then he walked toward the vineyards.
“Tour,” Mary Grace said. She glanced down at her attire. On the outside she was wearing a Maggie London Leaf-Print halter dress in shades of black over white silk. The black slash belt minimized her waist. Finally, the right shoes (Nine West “Freda” pointed toe pumps in black patent leather) made her legs seem a mile long. The camouflaged lingerie was her only capitulation to the name of investigation, although it wasn’t visible to the average onlooker. The finally tally was good. “I look like I’m ready to take a wine tour.”
So Mary Grace parked Callie’s Miata and went inside to join the group. Five people glanced at her curiously as she came through the door but the guide (Bill?) kept speaking.
Mary Grace took a moment to look around what was obviously the locale for wine tasting. Plain tables held bottles of the vineyard’s vintages. Various glasses on trays were ready for the wines to be poured. Posters with the Winery’s label decorated the walls. The goose was prominent.
What does a goose have to do with making wine? Mary Grace thought crossly. Furthermore, does north central Texas ever see a goose? I can’t think of the last time I saw a goose. Maybe when I went to Virginia to visit my cousin. Hell and gone from Texas, that goose.
“…Cynthiana grapes are used primarily in northern central Texas because of their adjustment to the area’s arid climate,” the guide (Bill?) said. “The grapes typically produce a rich, full-bodied, red wine with dry characteristics. Vitis aestivalis is the scientific name if we have any scientists.” Question-mark Bill chuckled amicably and waited for some faint laughter that came after the fact.
Mary Grace studied the man who was the guide. In his forties, Question-mark Bill was clean and well-cut. His hair was salt and pepper and his face tanned from outdoor exposure. She took a bet that he was one of the owners and did a significant portion of the work himself. I could definitely recommend an excellent moisturizer combination sun block, she thought generously. But only if he’s not trying to murder me.
“One of Cynthiana’s most attractive features is that it has a remarkable resistance to fungi and diseases that can plague other vines. It can be grown with very little pesticide input which makes the wine very nearly organic. The grapes ripen in August and early September and in our particular climate an irrigation system is essential.” Question-mark Bill smiled. “This is Texas folks. The sun loves to shine here.”
More weak laughter.
Question-mark Bill smiled and talked and smiled and talked some more and then there was a tasting. Mary Grace didn’t really get why everyone kept spitting the wine out but after about three glasses of different vintages she started to care a little less. Also she didn’t really care that some of the tour group was giving her odd looks for actually swallowing the wine. But a little wine was going a long way in terms of an empty stomach and Mary Grace happily bought two cases. They even loaded it haphazardly into the trunk of the Miata, which didn’t really have enough room.
The parking lot was empty when Question-mark Bill finished with Mary Grace’s two cases of wine. He tipped a nonexistent hat at her and vanished into the first building. As far as she could tell he didn’t recognize her and he certainly wasn’t admiring of her leaf-print, silk halter dress, or of her Nine West pumps. Mostly, he’d seemed amused by her, bu
t then he’d been busy because every single person in the tour group had bought at least one case of the wine that had been tasted.
As far as Mary Grace was concerned Question-mark Bill should have been skipping with joy. After all, how many cases of wine did someone need to sell at that price to make a profit? Ouch. Everyone was getting a bottle of Goose Winery merlot for Christmas. And some people were going to get one for their birthdays, too.
Moderately priced wine aside, Mary Grace couldn’t say that anyone with a motive to murder her was located within fifty miles of the winery. And since she had a mild buzz she couldn’t say that she should start up the Miata and drive back to Dallas. She tapped her fingers on the car and looked around craftily. But I didn’t look the entire place over, did I?
She approached the first building and knocked twice before entering. It was an office with computers and phones and faxes. Question-mark Bill wasn’t present but there was a sign on the wall that said, ‘Don’t Fear the Reefer,’ and another one that said, ‘Do the Dewb.’ Mary Grace shrugged with minute confusion.
What she really needed was a bathroom, and having to borrow a bathroom was a really good excuse for snooping around and looking for evidence of murder and of Deep-Throat Mommy. Besides which, Mary Grace couldn’t let a perfectly good set of camo lingerie go to waste. She went through a back door and followed a path to another building. Once she ascertained that that building was also office space and empty of people, she went on to the next one. There she found the place where the grapes were reduced and transformed into wine. It smelled like a distillery. Oak barrels were abundant.
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