by Annie Knox
“Nonsense. Of course he was working on a story. And of course it got him killed.”
I could practically hear Jack’s teeth grinding. “Izzy McHale, you’re missing the point. You need to back off so you don’t get yourself killed.”
“Would you miss me?” I teased.
“Yes. As a matter of fact I would.”
I was taken aback. I’d known Jack Collins all my life. He was one of those boys who pulled pigtails and planted whoopee cushions. Every year, when we taped our brown paper bags to the back of our chairs, he got caught stealing my valentines. But we’d never been all that close. Sean, Rena, and I were the three musketeers, and once I started dating Casey, I hardly had time for anyone else. Besides, Jack hung out with the jocks. He was in a couple of my AP classes, but he was real quiet there, kept to himself; it was only when he was with his fellow football and hockey players that he came out of his shell.
“Thank you.” It sounded lame, but I couldn’t figure how else to respond. “I appreciate your concern and all, but I really need to make sure my aunt Dolly doesn’t go to prison. You can see that, right?”
I heard him shift his posture on the other end of the line. “Yes,” he said, voice softer now. “I know how much Dolly means to you. And for what it’s worth, I won’t let them close the case until we’ve examined every possible angle on this murder. I can’t save your aunt if she’s guilty, but I’m going to make sure we look under every rock before we prosecute her.”
“Thanks, Jack,” I said, genuinely touched.
He laughed gently. “Don’t give it a second thought. My mother would have my hide if I didn’t look out for Dolly. Your aunt has quite a fan club. I’ve had half the Methodist Ladies’ Auxiliary call me, and Richard Greene has ‘just stopped by’ the department twice already.”
“That’s my Dolly. Always the life of the party.”
“Emphasis on ‘life,’ Izzy. Like I said, protect your own. Stay out of this investigation.”
I hung up the phone with nothing more than a simple good-bye. I wasn’t about to make a promise I couldn’t keep.
CHAPTER
Nine
As we were wont to do, the whole family gathered at my parents’ house for Sunday dinner. The immediate family—Mom, Dad, my sisters, and I—were always in attendance. We rounded out the ten-person dining table with a variety of people. I had asked Rena to join us, which she usually did. In fact, I think my mother would throw me out to make room for Rena.
This particular week, though, she’d asked if she could bring Jolly with her. Jolly was luscious, a cloud of raven black ringlets surrounding soft features and balancing out a tiny, curvy body. She and Rena had been hanging around more with each other over the past couple of months. I think it started as Jolly helping Rena find entrée into the Merryville gay community, but all signs now pointed to a budding romance. The two of them showed up together with a bottle of merlot and a hand-tied bunch of tulips.
The big surprise, however, was that my sister Lucy brought Xander Stephens. Xander was tall but scrawny, six foot three but no more than one hundred and seventy-five pounds. I saw the glint in my mother’s eye when she showed him to a place at the table. Xander was a challenge my mother appeared determined to conquer. She would make sure the boy left at least five pounds heavier than when he arrived.
She immediately handed him a basket of cheese straws. He ducked his nearly hairless head and, without looking my mom in the face, took one and passed the basket. My mother’s sigh was dramatic. Like William Shatner dramatic. I shot her a quelling look, but got nothing but a shrug in return.
Dolly was the last guest to arrive. She hustled in wearing a silk tank top, a pair of skintight jeans, and brilliant white track shoes on her feet.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she said breathlessly as she plopped into her usual seat at the table. “Didn’t mean to keep everyone waiting. I was on the phone with Nora Miller, telling her all about my ordeal.”
“Nora Miller?” Mom asked. “Why, she hasn’t lived in Merryville for at least fifteen years. You’ve never once mentioned that you keep in touch.”
“Don’t really,” Dolly conceded. “But extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that I’ve been going through my old address book making sure I call everyone. Had to track Nora down through her niece Miranda Stone. Thought I’d never find her.”
Mom sank slowly into her chair. “You mean you’re actually telling everyone you know about being arrested?”
Dolly flipped her hands palm up and shook her head. “Well, of course. I want them to hear it from me and not on the nightly news.”
Dad chimed in, “Dolly, I don’t really think—”
“Oh hush, Clem,” my mom said. “Dolly, the national news isn’t going to cover this story.”
“You never know, right, Clem?”
We all looked at my dad.
There was no right answer to this question. If he agreed with Dolly, my mother would give him the silent treatment for the rest of the night. If he disagreed with Dolly, she’d yammer at him all night. Either way, he was hosed.
Taking the only prudent course open to him, he grabbed a cheese straw and shoved it in his mouth.
“I still can’t believe you’re worried about what people you knew eons ago are thinking about your arrest. You were arrested. . . . Shouldn’t you be worrying about that? I mean, Dolly, you could really go to jail. Aren’t you a little bit afraid?”
Dolly closed her eyes and cocked her head. “As a matter of fact, I am not. I’ve decided I like that big, sweet cop, and I know he’s still investigating. He’s not giving up on me yet. Plus, I have Izzy and Rena and everybody helping me out, too. They’ll find the real killer, and I’ll never even go to trial.”
Rena and I shared a panicked look. Sure, we were trying to find the real killer, and we’d even done it once before, but we couldn’t offer Dolly any guarantees. It worried me that she was putting so much faith in us. It was a mighty weight to bear.
I helped my mother bring in a carved ham, fresh green beans, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, and two seitan sausages for me and Rena. We began the ritual of passing the plates around, everyone serious in their efforts to load up on my mom’s incredible cooking.
As we settled down to dig in, my dad cleared his throat. “So, Jolly. I’ve seen your work. You do a fine job.”
“Thank you, Mr. McHale.”
“Mmm. Well, I was just wondering if you and our Rena are a thing?”
Jolly had her mouth open to answer, but my mother beat her to the punch with a shocked gasp. “Hush, Clem! That is none of our business.”
“I just . . .” He let his sentence trail off into silence in the face of my mother’s withering stare.
“I’m so sorry, Jolly. We don’t mean to intrude. But . . . we do care very much for Rena and we won’t take kindly to someone breaking her heart.”
Both Jolly and Rena turned bright red.
“Now, Xander, tell us a little about yourself.”
Xander looked up, but it was Lucy who spoke.
“Xander is from Milwaukee. He’s got a degree in math from Lawrence, and he’s supersmart.”
Mom cut in. “Lucy, why don’t you let the boy speak for himself?”
Lucy thinned her lips and looked pointedly at my father, then back to my mother.
“Well, I . . . ” Mom sputtered before clamping her lips closed. “That is different. Clem has had his whole life to talk at this table. This is Xander’s first time.”
Mom’s logic made no sense at all, but that didn’t really matter. From the outside, my parents seemed to lead a very average life. They were both retired high school teachers (Mom in English, Dad in history). Edie and Clem McHale had three stair-step daughters, Irish triple
ts, some might say. They lived in a comfortable suburban house. Clem did woodworking and Edie played canasta with all the other ladies in town.
But once you got a good look inside, you could see how cockeyed it all was. Dad didn’t carve spoons or walking sticks. . . . He carved little trolls and demons and mushrooms, and he was building himself his own orc-filled kingdom. And my mom had started reading all these books about self-actualization. According to Dolly, Mom was trying her hand at writing erotica, and she’d let her inner bossiness come out in full force.
My sisters took after our mom. They were strong-willed, set in their ways, and tended to run roughshod over people whenever it suited them.
I, on the other hand, was like Aunt Dolly: flighty, trusting, easily distracted, and sometimes downright foolish.
We were the perfect Midwestern family with a heart of pure neurosis.
“Go ahead and tell us your story, Xander.”
“There’s not much to tell, ma’am. Like Lucy said, I’m from Milwaukee.”
“And . . .”
“And I own a record store?”
My mother sighed. This was not going as she had hoped. She turned to Lucy, who smiled smugly.
“Xander doesn’t just own a record store. He has a whole Internet empire where he sells to collectors all around the world. He scours estate sales and flea markets finding the most gems in the dirt. Oh, and did I mention that he moved to Merryville to start this record business after he sold this app he created in college for like a bazillion dollars?”
We all turned to look at Xander, who ducked his head and forked up a big bite of mashed potatoes.
He was wearing a button-down shirt of indeterminate color, its collar all wonky, and a pair of jeans that were cut for a scarecrow and still were falling off his scrawny hips. His left leg bobbed up and down like he was ready to bounce right out of the house.
I couldn’t blame him.
“I, uh,” he mumbled. “I did okay. It wasn’t a bazillion dollars, though.”
Everyone just kept staring at him, like the poor boy was an alien who had beamed into my parents’ dining room.
“So,” I said, taking pity on him, “how’ve you been doing, Dru?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’s that supposed to mean’?”
“You know there’s nothing new going on. I go to work, I go home, I cook dinner, I knit, I snuggle with Poppy, and I go to bed. You don’t need to rub it in.”
“I wasn’t trying to rub it in,” I insisted. “I was just making conversation.”
“Girls,” Mom cut in, “that’s enough. At the end of the day, all I want to know is when I’m going to get some grandbabies.”
“Mom!”
“Mother!”
“Holy crap.”
On that one point, the McHale sisters agreed. Baby pressure was entirely off-limits.
Mom stuck her tongue out. Then she turned to Rena and Jolly. “That goes for you ladies, too. Rena’s babies will be my grandbabies, too. And I don’t care how you get them, whether you adopt or do that in vitro thing.”
“Mom,” I hissed. “Rena and Jolly are just good friends.” I wasn’t sure that was true, but I wasn’t about to give my mom ammunition. “You can’t be pushing them to have babies yet.”
“She’s right, Edith,” Aunt Dolly said. “You’ve got three beautiful girls who are making their own way in the world, all with good jobs, none of them in jail or high or anything. Count your lucky stars and stop with the baby nonsense.”
“Well, fine,” Mom said. “You know I love you all to pieces. I just sometimes get carried away.”
I reached over and patted her hand. “We know that, Mom. But can we just eat now?”
She laughed. “You’d better. I don’t want this food going to waste.”
Xander looked up at my mom with a crooked smile. “I won’t let that happen, Mrs. McHale,” he said as he reached for the plate of ham and served himself another slice.
My mom smiled like he’d hung the moon just for her.
She leaned toward Lucy. “I like this one,” she whispered. Before Lucy could respond, Mom held up a hand. “I know. I know. I’ll be quiet now.”
The rest of the meal was filled with casual chitchat and gentle teasing. Mom even let Dad tell a few jokes. They weren’t funny, but we all laughed anyway.
When Mom and Dru disappeared into the kitchen to dish up peach pie and vanilla ice cream, I leaned over to speak quietly with Dolly.
“What you said earlier? I’m really touched, Dolly. But you shouldn’t put too much faith in us.”
“What exactly is too much faith, dear?”
“I mean you should be relying on Jack Collins, not a bunch of rank amateurs, to get you off the hook for murder.”
Dolly gently patted my hand. “I have a great deal of faith in Jack Collins, but he’s just doing his job. You and Rena and Sean love me.”
I felt a well of panic building in my chest. “Yes, we love you so much, Dolly. But we’re not professionals. There’s no guarantee we can pull this off.”
“Oh dear,” Dolly soothed. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I know you have other obligations, and you’re an amateur. You may not be able to help me, but I have faith in your efforts. That you won’t give up on me. That’s all I could possibly ask.”
Despite the crowd in the room, I couldn’t resist pulling Dolly into a fierce hug.
No matter what, I wouldn’t give up on her.
CHAPTER
Ten
Monday morning dawned as bright and clear as the sound of church bells. I crawled out from the pile of quilts I’d been nesting in on my couch and made my way to the shower, where I indulged in a long soak.
Once downstairs and ready to face the day, I got to work swapping out some of my winter fashions for more summery outfits. I tucked the fleece-lined hoodies and striped sweaters (all repurposed from human sweaters I’d found at thrift shops) into sturdy plastic totes and used the clear space for spring slickers, fluttery chiffon ruffs, and a few ridiculously tiny swim trunks.
Packer did his best to help, dogging my every step and generally getting underfoot, drooling around the rawhide toy he had in his mouth. Daisy mostly stayed put at the foot of the stairs, but occasionally tiptoed toward Packer, her eyes on that rawhide. Whenever she got close, Packer would hunker down and growl. Finally, I found a rawhide for Daisy. She was delighted and dug into the chew toy with abandon. Packer, however, looked like I’d given another kid his ice cream. Sharing wasn’t Packer’s strong suit. He renewed his efforts to get under my feet, to gain my attention.
Meanwhile Jinx sat on top of the counter and watched us all with narrow-eyed ennui.
“For the love of Mike, Packer, can you settle down?” I snatched the nasty rawhide out of his mouth before I pulled one of the new rope toys I’d just gotten in from its shelf—making a mental note to pay the store for the lost inventory—and tossed it in the direction of the barkery. I was hoping the novelty would keep my little guy distracted from Daisy and me for a while. Sure enough, Packer went scampering off, toenails clicking on the hardwood floor. When he got the rope toy, he gave it what for, shaking it fiercely and growling to let it know who was in charge.
He was a dork, but he sure was cute.
By the time Rena rolled in to set out her organic pet treats beneath their sparkling cake domes, I was hip deep in receipts, trying to make sure that my sales matched up with my bank deposits.
“Better you than me,” Rena said, idly scratching her ferret Val’s head as the animal lay draped around her neck.
Val, short for Valrhona, was a chocolate roan ferret. Her rich brown coat was sleek like an otter’s, and she adored being close to Rena. In fact, Val had been known to ride around inside Rena’s shirt. Val was adorable, frolickin
g around the store, pestering Jinx and frustrating Packer (who never could catch her in their chasing games). Val’s one flaw, and it was a biggie, was her kleptomania. Like many ferrets, Val had a way of slithering here and there, picking up shiny or interesting objects, and stashing them in hidey-holes she maintained throughout the shop. Rena was used to returning watches with a loaf of banana bread, or earrings with a plate of fudge.
“Yeah, well, I’d be completely underwater if Xander the Wunderkind hadn’t installed that bookkeeping software.”
Rena laughed. “What exactly were we thinking when we decided to open our own business?”
“That starving didn’t sound like fun.”
The bell over our front door jingled and Pris Olson made her elegant way into the store. She carried a flowered hatbox in one hand and a plate of pastries in the other.
“Sorry to drop by unannounced, but I’ve just been so swamped lately. The master gardeners want to do a tour of gardens in late May, so I’ve been up to my eyeballs in new shrubs and eighteen potential lilac varieties. I figured I should stop by while I could.”
With her hair in a perfect French twist, her nails immaculate with a fresh French manicure, and the enticing aroma of some fabulously expensive French perfume wafting with her every move, it didn’t seem like Pris had been gardening. But I imagined that Pris’s gardening involved a lot of pointing and yelling and not very much actual digging.
“I brought a peace offering. I stopped by the Happy Leaf and picked up a handful of pastries for us to munch on while we chat about Romeo and Pearl’s upcoming wedding.”
“Pastries?” Rena craned her head around the corner from the barkery, trying to scope out what exactly was on offer.
Pris’s eyes fluttered gently, as though she was trying to keep her composure in the face of a crude display. “I brought cherry Danish, pecan twists, and bear claws . . . two of each.”
