I was putting two and two together. “I know your dad!” I said. “Frank Foster, right? He’s one of Jill’s clients. He doesn’t like faxing, so I came up to get his signature on a new will. I just saw him yesterday.”
“He changed it back, then?” Father Fritz asked anxiously. “He’s been really cranky for the past few weeks, probably because—well, I‘ll tell you about that in a minute. He told me to get out of his sight for the day, so I ran some errands, got him some cigarettes—“
“Cigarettes?” we all asked.
“Absolutely. He claims cigarettes have extended his life.”
“Sheesh,” I said.
Evie defended him. “He probably really enjoys them. If he really looks forward to that, it gives him something to get up for. I know people who have just one martini, right at five every afternoon.”
“And then another one at six,” Patty said in my ear.
“Exactly,” said Father Fritz, smiling his earnest smile at Evie. She was eating it up. Another conquest. “I’d say you know my dad,” he went on. “Dad’s got to have his daily dose of Jim Beam, right at about that time. What can we say, when he’s 92 and healthier than two of his kids?”
“I know there’s a confidentiality issue here,” I said, “but Jill, my boss, er, is unavailable at the moment, and these circumstances seem highly unusual. Let me just say, Father Fritz, that from what I saw yesterday, I don’t think you or sister and brother have to worry about being cut out of the will.”
“Why would Daemon Lucifer, I mean Lassiter, or do I mean Brian Bunch, try to steer money into the Catholic Church, anyway?” Doug asked.
“I wondered about that, too. But it’s not as out of character as you might think. My guess is he saw an opportunity to sow dissension in a family, and thought the price was worth it,” Father Fritz said.
“Or else the Catholic Church is a tool of Satan,” Patty said in my ear.
“Text from Jill,” I said. “Dispatch from the front.” I looked. “Oh dear. All it says is OMG OMG OMG.”
“Well, we know what’s happening with her,” Patty said. “Are her two hours up?”
“That means Oh My Goodness,” said Evie, parading her knowledge. “But how do you know what’s happening?”
Doug choked on his hash browns.
“Too much hot sauce?” I asked, amused.
Evie was not easily deterred. “What’s happening with Jill?”
“More of that darned role-playing,” Patty said with disgust. “I hope they realize that check-out is at 11.”
I looked at Patty with respect. She could bullshit Mom so convincingly, I was almost ready to believe her myself.
“So where does the bottle of hot sauce come in?” Doug asked. “It tasted fine, by the way. I poured a bunch of it on my hash browns. The kitchen really burned those hash browns though. There were a couple big chunks that almost got caught in my throat.”
“That’s the reason you started choking just now,” I said affably. “Now I get it.”
“Hush,” said Doug. “Go on with your story, Father Fritz. So your dad cut all his children out of his will?”
“Yes. It was about three weeks ago that Daemon Lassiter succeeded in talking Dad into changing his will in favor of the Church, despite all my efforts. That night, Dad had gone to bed, and Lassiter and I stayed up, talking. Well, arguing, really. I pretty much accused him of having his eye on Dad’s money himself.”
“Oh, surely not,” Evie said.
“Well, he probably didn’t. I just didn’t understand his motivation or his influence with Dad. I mean, why start interfering? So he told me Dad’s money was not of the least interest to him, that he had only the Church in mind, and that as a matter of fact, he had a diamond worth a lot of money that he was going to donate to the church, himself.”
“Wow,” Doug commented. “Do you think he was telling the truth?”
“I don’t know, but he did seem to have a diamond. We had gone back to the dining room to talk, and not all the dinner had been cleaned up, you understand. I’d cooked up fajitas on the grill, but no one was in a hurry to wash the dishes or put the food away.”
“You need a woman’s touch,” Evie said, nodding her understanding.
“So what happened, Father Fritz?” asked Tina.
“He could tell I didn’t believe him, so he pulled a small stone out of his pocket—a stone, unset, you understand—and showed it to me in the palm of his hand. I said, that doesn’t look so big to me, and he said, well, it’s a red diamond and worth a lot more for that reason. He said a client had given it to him and asked him to give it directly to the Pope. She said she’d always called it the Pope Diamond.”
“Oh, like the Hope Diamond,” Evie said.
“Cute,” I observed. “I wonder how much of this story we can believe.”
“Danielle,” Evie frowned, “are you saying Father Fritz is making this up?”
“No, mom,” I said patiently. “I’m saying that Mr. Role-Player cannot be trusted.”
“That’s a shame,” Evie said. “We need to keep him lifted up. I’ll put him on the prayer chain.”
“Text from Jill,” Patty interrupted.
“’I’m in love,’ followed by a heart,” I said grimly. “Leave it to Jill.”
“Well, we knew that was going to happen,” Patty said. “Their two hours will be up soon, so let’s get back to the story.”
“There’s not much more to say,” Father Fritz continued. “I guess I startled him, reaching across to pick up some of the food still on the table, and he must have thought he had to protect his fancy diamond. He fumbled the diamond and grabbed for it, but it fell out of his hand right into the open bottle of hot sauce. He shouted, ‘No!’ and I can’t describe it, but he dived right in after it. Into the bottle!”
“Unbelievable!” said Doug.
“It must have been expensive,” said Tina.
“That’s right,” said Evie, much struck. “Otherwise, who would want to jump into a bottle of hot sauce? Just think how messy and smelly that would be. I hope he found it?”
“I presume so,” Father Fritz said. “But I must confess what I did next. In a split second I realized no natural power could have accomplished what he had just done. Enter a bottle? Execute a near-perfect swan dive doing so? No, that had to be supernatural, and not a good supernatural, either, judging by the discord he’d brought into the house. So I clapped my hand over the top of the bottle, found the cap in the kitchen, and managed to cap the bottle with our Mr. Lassiter securely inside.” He showed us the palm of his hand. A burn had blistered over and was healing.
“It’s the same size as—“ Doug said, and brought the opening of the hot sauce bottle over to the palm of Father Fritz’s hand.
“Perfect fit,” said Tina.
“How brave you were!” said Evie. “How much that must have hurt!”
Pleasant-faced Father Fritz smiled at my mom. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. Thank you!”
“So that’s how he got in,” I said slowly. “Three weeks ago, you said?”
“Yes, right at the end of May.”
“Daemon Lucifer did say three weeks,” I said slowly. “But how did he get from Frank Foster’s dining room table to the front desk of the Sun Devil Motel?”
“Things can end up in the strangest places,” said Evie. “Remember the time, Danielle, when you looked all over for the cat’s flea collar and found it in the diaper pail?”
“Text from Jill,” Patty reported. We both got out our phones. “’incredible talent swoon swoon swoon.’ That borders on TMI,” she commented.
“Too Much Information,” Evie explained.
“Mom, did you start texting?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.
“The prayer chain ladies showed me how,” she said primly. “It’s a faster way to get people in need of prayer up on the chain.”
Tina said, “Father Fritz isn’t finished with his story.”
“I took the hot sauce
bottle with me that night,” Father Fritz went on, and we all hushed to listen. “I didn’t think I should let him out, and I was afraid Dad would do so, accidentally. I think I mentioned already that Dad’s been really cranky and difficult, even before the sudden departure of Mr. Lassiter. I’ve been at this motel for most of the month I’ve been in town, just to have a little breathing room. Well, I’ve been leaving the hot sauce bottle on the counter in the bathroom, and when I got home last night, I didn’t really notice that it was gone. But at about six this morning, I was heading back out to Dad’s, thinking I could get his lawn mowed before it got too hot, and suddenly I realized the bottle hadn’t been in the bathroom when I brushed my teeth this morning. So I turned around in a hurry, got back to the motel and was asking about it, when you two showed up,” he said, nodding to Patty and me. “I think the maid may have taken it out of the room yesterday when she was cleaning.”
Father Fritz turned to me. “So when did you come into the picture? How did he get out?”
Chapter 13 – Breakfast Theater
Oh, dear. I looked around. Doug, damn him, was looking amused. Tina looked like she expected answers, and they’d better be good. Patty looked sympathetic, of course. Evie looked around for a waitress. “More coffee,” she called out.
“It was all because I was bored a few nights ago,” I started.
“No, it was last night,” Patty reminded me.
“Oh, yeah. Last night. Last night was a really long night.”
“I noticed that, too,” said Father Fritz. “I caught up on a lot of sleep.”
“I didn’t,” Doug said.
“I didn’t either,” I said.
Patty explained, “We’ve all been up all night, and some of us even longer.”
“I think I was going to put the hot sauce on my fries,” I explained. “At least, I opened the bottle, and that’s the only reason I can think of.”
“Interesting,” Father Fritz commented. “That’s good to know, that Mr. Lassiter (or whatever you want to call him) can exert some influence beyond the confines of the bottle. His power is strong indeed.”
“Like the One Ring of Power,” said Doug with interest. “It hopped right off Gollum’s finger when it saw its opportunity.”
“I’ll make this short, because I’ve repeated the story, and because we need to get back to the motel and check on him,” I went on. “I voiced the wish to relive my early twenties—“
“An understandable wish,” said Father Fritz, smiling sympathetically at me. “I’ve often wished that, myself.”
I looked at him gratefully. “Well, in my twenties I was dating Doug here, so I was wishing for him as, um, part of the package, in a way.”
“You know, I think I remember hearing about you,” Father Fritz said.
“That would be me,” Doug said. “When I married Tina, she wanted to celebrate Mass at our wedding, and I owed about five years’ worth of confession by then. I sort of coughed it all up at once.”
“You make me sound like a hairball,” I said in disgust.
“More like a case of salmonella,” Tina said sweetly.
“Now that’s bad,” Evie said. “I got that from bologna salad served at a cookout once. Sick as a dog for three days. We narrowed it down to the bologna salad because the people who didn’t get sick, like your father, girls, hadn’t tried any of it.”
“What a bunch of bologna,” Patty said in my ear.
“So anyway, I was suddenly confronted with Daemon Lucifer,” I went on, “and he managed to get me to sign a contract for a night with my old boyfriend. He told me that since I was an atheist, it wouldn’t mean anything.”
“Atheist!” Mom spluttered.
“Hang on, Mom, I did dispute that. I told him I was a lapsed Lutheran—“
“Lapsed Lutheran!” Mom spluttered.
“—and he told me if I didn’t believe in souls it was a freebie—“
“Didn’t believe in souls!” Mom spluttered.
“But I think he was lying,” I concluded. “And now he’s got Doug’s signature, too, all because Doug wanted to get home.”
“How did Doug get involved?” asked Father Fritz.
“I was suddenly dropped here in Bullhead City, out of a sound sleep, just yanked out of my own bed in Schaumburg,” Doug said virtuously.
“Is this all about the role-playing game?” Evie wanted to know.
“Yeah, Mom,” Patty said. “You’ve hit the nail on the head.”
“Danielle, should Emmy be involved in RPG?” Evie asked me.
“It’s Sponge Bob, Mom. I don’t see a problem.”
“Oh.”
“So anyway, we’ve been trying to get the contracts nullified because I didn’t get what was promised and because Doug and I both loathe each other—“
“Danielle, please don’t be rude,” said Evie.
“Well, in a manner of speaking, mom. We just want to get the contract we signed voided out. It’s all a terrible mistake!”
“Rush Limbaugh—“ Evie started.
“NO,” Patty said.
“Dr. Laura—“
“NO,” I said.
“We tried an exorcism, too,” Doug reminded me.
“That’s right. Tina was awesome!” I said generously. “But he didn’t take it very seriously. Oh, and he got Josh in here for awhile, and one of my old students. Tina and Patty were here by then, but not Mom or Jill.”
“I’m not sorry to have missed Josh,” Mom said. “I have to be honest.”
“Everyone was glad when he left,” Patty told her. “He’s a stick-in-the-mud, and he called Dannie and me both sluts.”
“I thought he had some good qualities,” Tina said.
“I noticed that,” I said.
“So then when Jill arrived, she recognized him. She knew him as Brian Bunch—“
“Role-playing,” Evie explained to Father Fritz.
“Yeah, role-playing,” I said, turning my head toward him so I could roll my eyes without Evie detecting it.
“Doug, NO,” Tina said suddenly. He was rummaging through the diaper bag.
“Honey, I’m sorry. The waitress hasn’t been here for awhile, and that hot sauce and salt have left me so thirsty!” Doug said apologetically. “It’s just the baby’s bottle.” He took a swig.
“It’s the holy water!” Tina said in disgust.
“Oh dear,” Evie said. “It reminds me of when Josh took communion with us and fed Mike a wafer. Mike was only two years old!”
“And he’s been a holy hellion ever since,” I finished.
“Doogie will just be extra blessed today,” Patty said, patting his arm. “No worries.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Doug said guiltily. “Father Fritz, how bad was that?”
“No worries is right, Patty,” Father Fritz said. “I can bless water any time. Leave it out, I might get thirsty.”
“What a nice man,” Evie said to me, nodding at Father Fritz as if he wasn’t in earshot.
Just then there was a commotion at the front of the diner. Daemon Lucifer came strolling in, looking like a rock star. Not bad for nine in the morning. Every woman’s eyes were riveted on him. Including mine. Including Evie’s! Oh geez—and including Jill’s. She was six steps behind him, and running to catch up.
“Brian, please don’t leave me,” she wept. “Brian, wait for me! Brian, we don’t have to check out until eleven!”
“I’m exhausted,” the Devil told her.
“Then come back to the room and you can sleep. I’ll rub your back. I’ll run my fingers through your hair. I’ll do anything you want.”
“Good thing it’s a big booth,” Patty said in my ear.
“So this is RPG,” said Evie. “Goodness, it’s better than a play!”
“I’ll sign the contract,” Jill said.
“Don’t sign anything!” five of us said at once.
“Exorcism?” Tina said to Father Fritz. He nodded.
“I don’t want your
contract,” said the Devil. “Two hours with you is enough. I won’t have you clinging to me for eternity!”
Jill sobbed and tried to embrace him, but he looked frantically around, and dived into an open bottle on the table.
“Just like that!” Father Fritz said. “That’s exactly how he did it three weeks ago!”
Doug had grabbed a cap and was capping the bottle. “Only he missed the hot sauce this time,” he said, holding up the bottle.
“Holy water!” Father Fritz exclaimed.
“Look at it bubble,” Tina said, peering in through the translucent plastic.
“That might be the best place for him,” I said. “As long as the plastic holds up.”
Evie was still shaking her head in amazement. “WAY better than a play!”
“Give it to me!” Jill lunged for the bottle. “Please!” Tears and runny mascara streaked her face.
“Come on, Jill,” said Patty consolingly. “Danielle, can you settle up? The sooner we get her out of here, the better.”
“Good idea, go everybody,” I said.
Mom put a $20 in my hand. “That’s for me, dear—I added a big tip because of the entertainment. I’ve been to the dinner theater before, but never a breakfast theater! I wonder if Friendship Town might want to rent a bus and come up here?”
“I’m sure you can check into that when we get home,” I said. “I’m just hoping Jill has some advice about the contract Doug and I signed, so that we can get that fixed and then leave.”
I was the last to return to my room, but I did a swift head count on entering. One bottle of holy water, check. It seemed to have stopped bubbling. One sobbing boss, check. She wasn’t bubbling as much, either, but had settled into a mournful despondency. One mother talking about breakfast theater, check. One sister, god love her, who seemed like everybody’s best friend. An ex-boyfriend and his wife. The unexpected priest. Oh, and an empty bottle of hot sauce. Check, check, check, check, and check.
Oops, one more item to check off. “Where’s that frickin’ contract that has caused us so much grief?” I demanded.
“Right here,” Patty said, holding it up.
The Devil and Danielle Webster Page 11
