And Death Goes to . . .

by Laura Bradford

  “I don’t inhale my food!”

  This time she didn’t bother to pull the phone away from her mouth. She just laughed. Loudly. “Oh, Tobi.”

  Now, there were few things JoAnna did that irritated me. But being Oh Tobi’d definitely made the list. I suspected that had something to do with the fact they tended to coincide with my mouth uttering something obvious or stupid.

  I shook off all flashbacks of my more quickly ingested meals and made myself steady the breath that had become agitated inside the sandwich place. “I was standing there, listening to Cassie possibly admitting culpability in Deidre Ryan’s murder when he started texting me every two seconds”—for maximum effect, I modulated my voice to something resembling Grandpa Stu’s—“I’m waiting…are you coming...where are you...I’m going to start walking if you don’t—”

  “Wait. Back up. To the part about Cassie.”

  At the next stop sign I turned right. “You mean the part about her possibly admitting culpability in Deidre Ryan’s death? Yeah, I thought that was kind of important, too. But noooo, my grandfather is in a snit he refuses to explain and so, after the fourth text, Cassie said something about it being obvious I was in high demand and she probably should get back to her resume, anyway.”

  “Did you say her resume?”

  “Yup, I sure did.”

  “But I thought you said she was a big shot at Ross Jackson. With a corner office and all.”

  “I did. And she was. But for whatever reason that’s—

  “Wait! Maybe this is about what you said earlier. About that woman you were up against being the new shining star for the time she was there.”

  It took me a minute to switch tracks between the train I was on, and the one JoAnna was driving, but I caught up. “Lexa.”

  “Maybe being dethroned by Lexa stuck with Cassie even after Lexa moved on.”

  I tucked that notion into the revisit this later part of my brain as I pulled to a stop in front of my agency and pulled the keys from the ignition. “I’m here, by the way.”

  If JoAnna heard me, she didn’t let on. Instead, she backed up our conversation one more time. “So what’s this about admitting a hand in that poor woman’s death?”

  “Possibly admitting. Possibly.”

  “Yeah, yeah…”

  As tired as I was, I still mustered a grin as I switched our call to my phone and stepped out of my car. “She’s going after the new opening at The Whitestone Agency.”

  “I wasn’t aware there was a…” By the time the proverbial bomb exploded in her head, I was in place (and helping myself to a butterscotch candy from her candy jar) when the fallout made its way past her lips. “Good heavens, Tobi! That poor woman’s body isn’t even in the ground yet!”

  I unwrapped the candy but stopped shy of inserting it into my mouth. “So I’m not the only one who finds it fishy?”

  “Fishy? Try Appalling. Beyond that, there are simply no words.” JoAnna, now realizing we were no longer speaking via phone, lowered the receiver into place and stared at me across the top of her desk. “I don’t understand how someone could even think like that. Especially someone who had a bird’s eye view of such a tragedy the way we did…the way Cassie, herself, did.”

  I popped the candy onto my tongue and worked it around my mouth while I considered my secretary’s words and countered them with the thought that had accompanied me out of the sandwich place and into the parking lot—a thought I’d wanted to share with my grandfather but hadn’t because I’d been pissed. “Unless Cassie was prepared in a way no one else was.…”

  “Surely someone with Cassie’s reputation in this industry could have found a job at another agency without helping her search along in that way.”

  It was a point I hadn’t yet gotten to, and one that, if I really thought about it, kind of halted the whole case closed proclamation I was itching to make so I could check something off my ever growing to do—

  “Oh no.”

  JoAnna’s eyes widened. “What?”

  I heard the crinkle of the butterscotch wrapper as I dropped my head into my hand, but it was no match for my groan.

  “What’s wrong, Tobi?”

  “I came back here so I could continue going through that list you made me, but I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I promised Rapple I’d pick her and Gertie up at the vet now and—”

  “So Gertie is okay then?”

  Slowly, I lifted my head up, tossed the wrapper into the trash, and hoisted the strap of my backpack up my arm yet again. “Based on what she said about needing to bring the little rat—”

  “Tobi!”

  “Sorry. Old habits.” I pointed at the candy jar and, at JoAnna’s eye roll, I helped myself to an assortment of treats to make the trip to the vet and back as bearable as possible. “Anyway, as I was starting to say, based on what Rapple said about needing to bring Gertie home, I get the sense there are still issues. What they are though, I don’t know. Yet.”

  “How did you end up with the job of picking them up?”

  “I answered the phone when she called.” I started to replace the lid on the candy jar when I spied a small package of Now & Laters midway down the left side and immediately began the kind of search and rescue mission that trained professionals would’ve envied. “She called hoping to find my grandfather.”

  JoAnna shook her head at my thievery and then, when I had the desired candy in my clutches, reached over and secured the lid. “Who was there at lunch with you, yes?”

  “He was. But he told me to say he wasn’t.”

  “Trouble in paradise?” she asked as she pressed a few buttons on her computer and then turned toward the printer housed on the shelf behind her desk.

  “So it seems.”

  “I would imagine that makes you happy?”

  Oh how I wanted to nod. But I couldn’t. Not when I couldn’t shake the reality that was my grandfather’s sudden sadness. Instead, I opened the outer wrapper of my latest candy conquest and shrugged. “I’m not sure how to answer that, so I won’t. For now.”

  I felt rather than saw JoAnna’s brow rise in surprise as I retrieved my keys from the top of her desk, but I opted not to react. If I did, I’d never get out of there, and then I’d have an irritated Rapple to deal with on top of everything else. “Anyhoo, in the course of me running interference for Grandpa Stu, she asked if I could pick her and Gertie up. Now I realize I should have checked with you to see if I have any meetings but—”

  “You don’t.”

  With the rest of my sentence now rendered useless, I hooked my thumb in the direction of the front door. “I better head out now.”

  “Take this.” JoAnna pulled some pages off the top of the printer, stapled them together, and handed them to me. “That way you can kill two birds with one stone.”

  I looked down at the first page and the handful of campaigns I’d already culled, and then back up at my secretary. “You’re a genius—” The front door opened behind me, ushering in a momentary blast of street noise, and we both turned to find Sam standing there, the smile on his teenage face brighter than ten Christmas trees rolled into one. Tossing his own backpack onto the corner chair, he puffed out his chest in true Superman style and grinned. “I did it! I did it!”

  JoAnna covered her mouth from Sam’s view and called on my limited lip-reading ability. “Prom?”

  I shrugged in response and turned back to Sam. “As much fun as it would be to start a round of twenty questions at this moment, I’m actually heading out for a little bit and I’m already a little behind schedule. Soooo, if you could just tell us who she is and whether she’s worthy, that would be great.”

  The telltale hue of embarrassment appeared on his cheeks only to be chased off with a cough and an emphatic shake of his head. “I got a job, Tobes! Jus
t like you said I would!”

  “Oh, Sam, that’s wonderful!” JoAnna gushed.

  Me, being me, followed up my praise with an immediate round of the same game I’d just said I didn’t have time for, although in all fairness, my who-what-when-where was only four questions rather than the cliché twenty.

  Fortunately for me, Sam was sixteen and his brain (and therefore his mouth) answered in rapid fire succession—the Callahan Agency…print work for an upcoming St. Charles area tourism campaign (damn, lost that one)…tomorrow…in St. Charles, of course.

  He followed it all up with a triumphant fist pump. “It was just like you said, Tobes. This guy—Kevin Callahan—said I turned heads with the work I did for you and with winning the award and everything and he wants to see what I can do for him and his agency!”

  Before I could respond or even puff out my own chest with the pride that was practically bursting out of my pores, Sam caught me up in a hug and spun me around the reception area much to JoAnna’s delight. “I did it…I did it…”

  When the motion stopped and he released his hold on me, I stepped back and tapped my finger on the tip of his nose. “At the risk of sounding all I told you so—which, by the way, I did, thankyouverymuch—I knew this was going to happen, kiddo. Your talent with a camera knows no bounds and it was only a matter of time before it got its due attention.”

  This time, when his cheeks flamed red, it was because of pride rather than embarrassment and it warmed me from the inside out.

  “Tobes, I don’t know how to thank you for all of this. For taking me seriously, for giving me a shot, for liking what I do…for all of it.”

  I felt my throat constricting and did my best to hold it at bay with a few big swallows and a mental reminder of the person who would soon be sitting in the passenger seat of my car. Unfortunately, the latter wasn’t as helpful at holding off the urge to cry as I’d hoped and so I accepted the tissue JoAnna held out to me. “You can thank me by knocking this Callahan shoot out of the ballpark, kiddo.”

  “Oh, I will, Tobes. You can count on that.”

  ~Chapter Eighteen~

  We were no more than half a block from my house when Mary Fran reached forward and shut off the radio I’d just turned on, effectively ending the one-person dance party taking place in my back seat.

  “Hey!” Carter protested. “That was a good song!”

  “That, my dear man, is a matter of opinion.”

  Carter’s rounded eyes met mine in the rearview mirror a split second before his lower lip jutted out in a pout. “I’m crushed, Mary Fran. Simply crushed.”

  I gave into the laugh I sorely needed and turned left at the end of the road, my general knowledge of the area in which Sommers Funeral Home was located making the need to call on Carter’s GPS app moot at this point in the ride. But as good as it felt to rid my head of what had been a fairly crappy day, the knowledge that it was about to get even crappier brought an end to the lightness.

  “So, this stuff with Stu… How long before we start waving the flag?”

  I headed toward the highway, peeking up at Carter as I did. “Flag?”

  “In surrender.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m here instead of him.” Carter’s focus shifted to the rearview mirror as a whole. “Necessitating the need to go”—he touched his hair—“brown—very temporarily, I might add—and wear…black.”

  “That’s an impressive lip curl, my friend.” I accelerated up the ramp and onto Highway 40 and immediately jumped into the left lane.

  “And that’s an impressive attempt to throw us off the scent—although, not impressive enough.”

  Oh how I wanted to ignore Mary Fran, to turn the radio back on and pray for yet another Boy George ditty that would have Carter dancing and Mary Fran banging her head on the passenger side window in protest. But even if I were successful, it would be a hollow victory. Because the truth was, I relied on these two to help me out of life’s trickier moments and this stuff with my grandfather definitely qualified.

  So I caved.

  “Okay, yes, I’m getting worried. Grandpa Stu is lethargic, monosyllabic, and he hasn’t showered in two days.”

  “Has he resorted to the hunger part yet?”

  “Hunger part?”

  Carter offered a thumbs up to a man driving a pale yellow Volkswagen Beetle in the middle lane and then settled back against his seat. “Of course. The most effective way to dig in one’s heels in protest is to stage a hunger strike.”

  “What on earth are you talking about, Carter?”

  “I mean, I knew he liked her and all, but to take it to this extent?”

  I pulled into the middle lane to get around a slow moving vehicle in the left lane and when I was safely back where I wanted to be, I met Carter’s eyes again. “Can you speak in English, please? As I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Think about it, Sunshine. He turned down the opportunity to investigate a murder. And as I was heading out, he pressed these”—Carter held up my grandfather’s notebook and magnifying glass—“into my hand.”

  I felt my stomach begin to churn and forced myself to take a few deep breaths. “No, the part before that…about liking her and all. You’re talking about Rapple, right?”

  “Who else?”

  “I don’t think you’re right. In fact, today? When I was at lunch with him? She called my phone looking for him and he insisted I not divulge the fact he was with me. Hence the reason I almost ran late for”—I motioned toward the road in front of us—“this thing tonight. He’s dodging her, Carter, not the other way around. Which means whatever this is, it’s his decision. He’s in the driver’s seat.”

  “He might be driving, Sunshine, but only because you’re sitting in the backseat with the proverbial gun to his head. And we’re”—he motioned toward Mary Fran and then over his shoulder in the direction we’d come from—“certainly not protesting.”

  I looked at Mary Fran. “What the hell is he talking about?”

  Mary Fran’s upper lip disappeared inside the lower one as she shrugged.

  I returned my attention to the occupant in my backseat. “What the hell are you talking about, Carter?”

  “You said he heard you the other day, remember?”

  I sensed someone’s eyes digging into the side of my head and turned to my right in time to register the stare down from a passing driver. Mouthing a sorry, I let him go by and then moved into the middle lane. “Heard me what?”

  “Trashing Rapple.”

  Suddenly, I was back in my apartment, talking to Andy, listening to the sound of my own voice in my head.

  “I wouldn’t pick Rapple for the delivery guy who dropped my pizza on the sidewalk last week, either.”

  The memory gave way to a dull roar in my ears. “I was just…”

  I let the rest of my sentence fall away as my memory jumped to my grandfather as he’d looked at that moment. He hadn’t said anything, hadn’t challenged me or chastised me, but I’d seen it in his eyes.

  I’d hurt him that day. I knew it then, and I knew it now. Yet in true Tobi form, I fought back the way Grandpa Stu had always taught me to do. “Okay, but if he really liked her that much, why wouldn’t he just tell me to stuff it?”

  Carter’s answering laugh was drowned out by Mary Fran’s.

  “What?” I protested. “It’s a valid question.”

  “If you were talking about someone other than you in relation to Stu, maybe. But we’re not.”

  “Someone other than me?” I echoed.

  Mary Fran sighed, traded eye rolls with Carter, and then shook her finger at me. “Have you seen the way he can power our entire street with his smile when he arrives for a visit to see you? Or heard the way he told everyone within a ten-mile radius about your award nomination? Or listened
—really listened—to his memories of you growing up and the fun you two always had?”

  Before I could truly process what she was saying enough to respond, Carter jumped in from the back seat. “You are the light in his days, the shiniest star in his nights, the whipped cream in his hot chocolate, the cherry on top of his ice cream sundae, the—”

  Mary Fran clapped her hands. “Carter, she’s got it.” Then, leaning across the center console, she narrowed her eyes on me. “You do get it, yes?”

  I said nothing.

  Not because I didn’t get the totality of Carter’s words, but because I was still trying to figure out what it meant in terms of my grandfather’s sudden personality change. I was important to him—I knew that. The feeling was more than mutual. But—

  “Oh no…”

  “Toot! Toot! The six-fifteen train to reality has just pulled into the station, ladies and gentleman. Next stop—How Do I Fix This.”

  Mary Fran laughed.

  I did not.

  “He called it quits with Rapple because of me?”

  “You really don’t get it, do you?” Carter drawled, pitching forward between the front seats.

  “Get what?”

  “There’s nothing Stu won’t do for you. Including putting a lid on his own happiness in favor of yours.”

  It was official. I felt like a complete heel.

  “But hey, cheer up. This means no more night sweats for you and no late night post-nightmare phone calls to me over the image of Rapple as a step-grandmother, right? Because honestly, you kicked off a few doozy nightmares for me, too.” Carter pulled a poorly placed quarter out of the appropriate change slot in my center console and resituated it correctly. “Though mine tended to have me Gertie-sitting while the three of you went on a family vacation together.”