Dial M for Mascara

by Bevill, C. L.

  Jack made a sort of strangled-cat noise behind her. Mary Grace ignored it. She picked the photo up and examined it closely. The cute little boy in the photograph was about the same age as the one she’d seen going and coming from Jack’s Arlington house, the child she had met before both in the office and once at the barbeque at Jack’s house. Five years old. Five years old and he’s got a huge science fair trophy. And the gizmo in the photograph looked like a bomb. It looks like some kind of thing you’d put on the bottom of a car, not that I really know what the kind of thing that blows up cars from the bottom looks like. She considered. Maybe if it was on sale.

  Mary Grace straightened up and turned toward Jack, with the photograph still in her hand. She looked carefully at his expression. He was relieved that I asked him about the chumbawumbas picture. He was relieved that I didn’t ask him something else. So what was it? “Your son…is what? A genius? A child prodigy?”

  Jack nodded slowly. His expressive green eyes seemed to glitter intently. He was trying to figure a way out of the situation. Mary Grace frowned, trying to put details together. Jack did have a crush on Mary Grace; he’d painted a nude of what he thought she looked like, even if the breasts were a little excessive. But had he come to Pictographs, Inc. to ask her out as he’d said, or was he there for another reason?

  “This is a bomb in this picture,” Mary Grace said, watching Jack’s face. It twisted, contorted, and attempted to bring itself to neutrality. I’m close. I’m almost there. I think maybe I got this one.

  “Morgan is interested in munitions. He thought he could build a device that would take out an engine in a vehicle only with minor damage to the driver or passengers.” Jack seemed to slump a little. “I guess he sees a little too much on the news lately.”

  “He’s five years old,” Mary Grace said, as if she were protesting. There’s a double-edged sword. Everyone wants to have an intelligent child, but what if that child was a little too clever? What if the kid is sharper than you are? Yowza.

  Jack shrugged. “He’s a smart little guy.”

  “And did he see the painting?” Mary Grace asked. You know what painting I mean, Jack. The one with the giant nipply-do-dahs. Yeah. Don’t make me say it aloud again.

  Jack nodded slowly.

  “How did he know the painting was me?” There isn’t a face on it. Just two something elses that pretty much dominate the whole canvas. Poor kid. He’s probably warped for life now. My boobies have made this kid go over the edge. Oh, God. I have to go see Father Patrick immediately.

  “There were…other paintings,” Jack said, pulling at the neck of his shirt as if it were too restrictive. “With your face, too. Mostly, I did torsos. I burn what I’m not happy with, which is why you only saw the one piece.”

  Mary Grace twitched unhappily. “So Morgan’s not content with you and his mother getting divorced?”

  Jack nodded shortly.

  Mary Grace stared at Jack. Time to make sure Ma’s psycho-ex-wife theory isn’t a determining factor. “So is your ex-wife the get-even kind of girl?”

  Jack shook his head without hesitation. “No. Once we got past the custody thing, it was fine. She’s gotten together with a dental surgeon. They’re talking about getting married next summer. The Bahamas, I think.”

  Mary Grace looked down at the photograph again. I wonder if the kid tried to blow up the dental surgeon too. “How did he get my address?”

  “Hacked my computer, we think,” Jack admitted in a dry voice.

  “Your ex-wife knows?” Be careful of using the ‘we’ word, Jack.

  “Mallory, that’s my ex, thinks Morgan snuck out the night of the 8th or the morning of the 9th and drove her car to your house. With a broom handle taped to the gas and a mop taped to the brakes. And he sat on several phone books for the steering wheel. It’s an automatic so he didn’t have to shift.” Jack rubbed a tired hand over his face. “Morgan said he learned how to drive by watching us. He said it wasn’t hard at all.”

  “And he planted the device on the bottom of my rental car?” Mary Grace almost couldn’t bring herself to say the words because they seemed so ludicrous coming out of her mouth. “A five year boy tried to blow me up because his father was painting portraits of my mammary glands?”

  Jack winced. “Morgan thought that if you were…to be out of the picture, then his mother and I…might reunite.”

  “Did you let the dental surgeon know he might have a problem with his car?” Mary Grace put the photograph on Jack’s desk and sat down abruptly in one of the chairs in his office. She stared at the office wall and wondered if her life was always going to be like this. It wasn’t like she was an alcoholic or a drug addict and she had reached the drop-dead bottom of her existence. No, it’s worse. Trey Kennebrew decided to use me as an experiment because he thinks I’m a flaky, fluffy brained twit with a stack of credit cards and a detailed map to every clothing store in town. Part of his experiment was to cut my brake lines to see how I deal with stress. I guess I was supposed to shop harder or something.

  And my boss painted his version of my ta-ta’s in glorious oils. His FIVE year old son took exception to that and tried to explode me into teensy-weensy little Mary Grace bits so that I wouldn’t be in the way anymore.

  How can it possibly get any worse than that? I mean, really.

  “Morgan’s reasoning was that if he…uh…got rid of you, then Mallory would leave her boyfriend for me.” Jack shuffled his feet awkwardly. Obviously he didn’t like explaining his murderous son’s impulses. “Morgan’s been in a clinic since last Monday. I kept him at my house until you broke in, and then Mallory and I decided he needed a little help.”

  “Are you going to let Trey take the blame for Morgan?” Mary Grace asked incredulously. “I mean, Trey did cut my brake lines, right? He confessed. He wrote it in his notes. Your son didn’t do that, too? Somehow from remote control in Florida?” She asked the question but she already knew the answer.

  “Mary Grace,” Jack said reluctantly. “I don’t know what Trey’s deal is. I know he’s in jail, and his mother said something about a dreadful mix-up with you. But that he’s really a good guy who’s terribly misunderstood.”

  “He’s a dorkhead and when he gets his Ph.D. they can call him Dr. Dorkhead,” Mary Grace said gracelessly. “But Trey did cut my brake lines, right?”

  “Yeah, Mrs. Kennebrew admitted that he did do that.” Jack rubbed his face again. “And you know we were at Disney World, so it wasn’t Morgan.”

  “So you know Trey’s been charged with the attempt on my life by means of the BMW bang-bang?”

  Jack nodded. “We’re talking to an attorney. Mallory and I agreed that Morgan will cop to the explosive device in your car, so that Trey isn’t wrongly convicted of the crime. We’re talking about a plea bargain because of his age.”

  “Oh,” Mary Grace said weakly. It’s hard to be mad at a five year old, she thought stupidly. I mean, he was just trying to get his divorced parents back together, at my expense. Shouldn’t I be really, really pissed off? Shouldn’t I want this kid to suffer? But Jeez, I don’t. He’s only five years old. Oh, I need to talk to Father Patrick. “I guess I need to find a new job,” she added, faintly, failing to think of what to say for the moment.

  “Um,” Jack said.

  “There’s a place in Dallas who made me an offer three months ago,” she went on. “Maybe they’d still be interested. It would be a pay cut, but I’d get more control over what I do.” She looked up at Jack. “Not that you don’t give me enough control, I guess.”

  “Perhaps it would be for the best,” Jack murmured.

  “Morgan’s in a psychiatric ward?” Mary Grace questioned. When Jack nodded, she said, “And you will go to the police about the BMW explosion?”

  Jack nodded again. “We’ve got an appointment with the DA on Monday. There’s no question about it. I was going to tell you before, but I…chickened out.”

  “And the shooting attempt?”

 
“Not Morgan,” he said immediately. “It couldn’t have been Morgan. I dropped him off at his mother’s house just before I came to see if you were all right here. She met us at the door and he was with her all evening long. I swear. Mallory swears. Besides none of us have any weapons like a .38 pistol that Detective Bloodsaw said was used. Not I. Not Mallory. Not our parents’. Not the dental surgeon. Well, he’s got a shotgun, but it’s locked up.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what a dental surgeon does with a shotgun.”

  “Morgan doesn’t have brown eyes, does he?” Mary Grace asked inanely.

  “Brown eyes?” Jack repeated. “No, they’re green, like mine. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, it’s probably nothing,” she said. “What about knowing a thirtyish woman with honey blonde hair, blue eyes, and a four to six month old baby?”

  “A blonde woman in her thirties with blue eyes with an infant?”

  “Yeah, kid likes his binkie. And his name is Johnny. The baby, I mean, not the binkie.”

  “I can’t think of anyone who has a little baby right now,” Jack said, clearly confused. “Not blonde or otherwise. Nothing springs to mind. What does this woman have to do with anything?”

  “I don’t know, but she got me banned from the mall for six months,” Mary Grace said irritatedly.

  “Mary Grace, are you okay?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” she replied.

  Chapter Seventeen – Thursday, June 23rd - Friday, June 24th

  Dear Auntie’s male devotees: Auntie implores you to try three techniques during the act of fidgeting the midget in Bridget. 1) Do ask your partner what feels best. Either or questions work well here. Examples: Do you like me licking this or that? Do you prefer touching here or there? 2) Find that g-spot, darlings. It’s worth the effort. For my gay readers, you’re well aware of your own g-spots and I applaud your expertise. And 3) Trim your nails. Please, please, please invest in a good nail trimmer or visit a manicurist before the event. She’ll love you for it. Truly.

  -Aunt Piadora’s Beauty (and occasionally other types of things) Hints

  Mary Grace couldn’t tell Brogan about Morgan Covington because she promised Jack she wouldn’t and the promise stuck in her craw like cheap seafood. However, Brogan would find out soon enough in the form of the DA informing the chief of police and so on down the ranks. Let Brogan tell me, she deliberated, trying to hedge her bets. I can act surprised. ‘It wasn’t Trey the second time? Oh, God, who was it? A little boy? Oh, no. How horrible. How awful. How dreadful. Can we have sex again? I like that one position where you had your hand on that certain spot.’

  “Oh,” she groaned, reality smashing down on her like an older brother sitting on one’s face in order to let go a really rank stinker. I’ve got two stalkers. One who is interested in me only scientifically and one who wants me out of the way so his dad can be with his mom again. I’m a good girl. I shouldn’t even have one stalker. I always wash my hands after using a public toilet. I don’t pick my nose in public. And my underwear always matches. I don’t wear white after Labor Day, except the one time, and that was a special occasion, and besides no one got a picture.

  Mary Grace sat on her porch with a large glass of white wine, glumly surveying the decimated oleanders and crepe myrtles. The BMW emblem was still embedded in the door frame. I’m kind of liking it there, she thought idly. I might leave it. It’s a statement. See world, I can be nearly blown up and here’s my thumb. And a raspberry. Plus thpppt. See, I’m sitting on my front porch, drinking a glass of wine, just daring someone to come by and shoot at me again.

  “Oh, God,” she said abruptly, realization making her stomach cramp with distress. “I don’t have two stalkers. I have three.” Trey could have been the Friday night shooter, but he hadn’t owned up to it in his notes. In fact, he’d implied that Mary Grace was being paranoid and imaginative. Trey was being held for the three attempts, but they would have to drop some of the charges on Monday once Jack Covington and his ex-wife came forward with their son’s creative methods of parental reconciliation. She didn’t think Jack, Mallory, and Morgan were going to have a very nice week, but since the child was only five, they were going to skate past it. Trey’s week might be brightened a little once that little tidbit was aired. However, if Trey wasn’t the shooter, and Morgan wasn’t the shooter, then who the heck was the shooter?

  A third person, Mary Grace answered herself silently. There was a third person she didn’t know about, a third person who really didn’t like her. ‘Die, Mary Grace, you little bitch.’ And there wasn’t anyone except maybe Callie she could tell. She couldn’t tell her mother because Ghita’s brain would probably rupture and blast into an uncountable multitude of enraged Catholic, Italian-American bloody, gory bits. Ghita dealt pretty well with one stalker. In fact, she had encouraged Mary Grace to fight it out, but the idea of telling her volatile mother about the second one, much less a third, unidentified one gave Mary Grace a case of the screaming willies.

  She couldn’t tell Brogan. It was a logical thing not to tell him. How do I know Trey isn’t responsible for the BMW boom-boom? Because a five year old kid is. Oops. Can’t tell him that. Because the five year old has an alibi for the third attempt. Well, why can’t I blame the third one on Trey, after all, he was there that night? Because Trey would have admitted it in his notes and also, Trey wouldn’t have said, ‘Die, Mary Grace, you little bitch.’ Let’s face it. I’m sure Trey doesn’t have that in him. Look at his stupid, experimental notes. He’s a scientific moron, not a vicious, demented killer.

  “But that’s a weak reason,” Mary Grace said. And should I mention that Deep Throat Mommy came to warn me again? She said I was still in danger. She implied that Trey wasn’t the one I was in danger from. She followed me because she doesn’t want me to be killed? This is giving me a headache.

  The sun had set in the west, but the sky was full of purples and pinks that appealed to the artist in her. Several Peterson children were whooping it up in front of their house, an obvious game of kill-the-other-child-and-claim-his-college-fund. Mrs. Frasier was outside pruning her azalea bushes while Attila the tailless wonder sniffed around the various shrubs intent on watering each one with his own personal vintage. Mr. Lofts was sitting on his porch with his boyfriend again. Hellfire and damnation, bring the would-be shooter on, right now. There are lots of witnesses. They’ll testify, right after they bury my still-twitching corpse.

  “How do I say to Brogan that not only do I know for sure that Trey didn’t blow up my rental, but I’m pretty darn sure that he didn’t try to shoot me, too? How do I tell him that a strange mommy with an adorable baby keeps coming to warn me about being in jeopardy? And then just as mysteriously disappearing?” Mary Grace took a gulp of wine. When she was finished with the white wine, she was going to try out some of the bottles she’d purchased from Goose Vineyards. They might be pro-cannabis, but they made a kicking merlot.

  Then Brogan drove up in his plain, unmarked sedan and parked in front. Speak of the devil, she thought. Does he have a regular car? What kind of car does a Frederick Brogan of the Dallas Police Department drive? I’m betting a SUV. Something big. A truck. A big Ford pickup truck. Blue or black. He’s a blue or black, pick-up truck kind of guy. Mary Grace looked down at her empty wine glass. How many glasses have I had? Whoa, Nellie, it was more than one, and less than a hundred.

  Brogan unraveled himself from the sedan and strolled up to her porch, his catlike grace evident in his long stride. Wow, she thought. I get hot watching him walk. When he stopped in front of her, she said, “Ford or Chevy?”

  A chuckle came out of his mouth. “I don’t know exactly what you’re going to say, do I?”

  “Well, that’s a company car,” she waved at the sedan. “So you’ve got to have a private vehicle. So I’ve got a private bet with myself. Ford or Chevy?”

  “Ford,” Brogan answered carefully. “You in trouble today? Since Trey Unibrow is in jail, I would think you’d be yelling for joy. I
’ve gotten past my mad. Life is good once again.”

  “And would you like a glass of merlot?” She waved her goblet at him. Hah. A clever way of changing the subject before I mess up royally. “I have a lot of merlot.”

  “Do you have beer?”

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “Foster’s Lager or Saint Arnold’s Divine Reserve no. 5. That’s a stout beer. Microbrewery. My father drinks it. So it’s been here for a little while. Apparently, he can’t get it in Florida. I guess they won’t mail it via UPS.”

  “Do you drink beer?” Brogan asked her.

  Mary Grace was a little too buzzed to gauge his mood. He seemed to be acting a little strange. Had he heard about her mall eviction? Maybe. Evasive action. DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! “Sometimes. Sometimes I like a shot of whiskey, too. Mostly I sip a glass of wine now and then.”

  “Not today,” he commented mildly.

  “Not today,” she agreed. “You want a brew or not?”

  “Oh, yeah, I want a brew,” he said firmly. “Foster’s. I’m not ambitious enough to try the Saint Arnold’s.”

  When she got back to the porch, Brogan was sitting in her chair. “You want to sit in my lap?” he asked with a little leer.

  Mary Grace smiled evilly. She really liked a challenge. Carefully juggling wine and beer, she slid into his lap, and made sure she rubbed across all the right places. Oh, MG, you shameless hussy. “What kind of Ford?”

  Brogan enveloped her in his arms and planted a slow, hot kiss across her lips. Little tendrils of desire made like lightning bolts through her body. When he finally pulled away, the wine glass was shaking. “It’s an F-150. I missed you this morning,” he said. “We didn’t say anything about meeting today.”