by Kelly Rey
I pointed at the window behind her. "Let's talk about embezzling. Are we supposed to believe you can afford that on your salary?"
We looked out at the branches of a leafy oak tree. Her office was on the second floor.
Janice shrugged again. "Believe what you want. You've got nothing on me. The wedding's over. Maybe you should have taken a little memento while you had the chance."
"Steal from a dead man?" I practically yelled. "Do you have any ethics?"
"He wasn't dead when you got there," she said. "Was he?"
That was open for debate. But I knew a losing argument when I fought one, so I flung the door open and went back to work.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"You can't be serious," Curt said.
It was nearly nine o'clock Thursday night and we were sitting on my sofa, plump and lazy after a takeout spaghetti dinner. The Phillies were on television. A light rain had started to fall outside. Ashley was curled up in Curt's lap asleep. Life was good. I'd even managed to avoid explaining Maizy's last failure to launch at the DMV through the tactical use of changes of subject and bogus migraines ever since. Until my creativity and Curt's patience had run out. Of course, I'd left out the part about the door and the examiner falling off and out respectively. I'd sort of substituted an engine problem in a car borrowed from a friend. You know, for reality.
"Don't be too hard on her," I said. "She's already been blacklisted for three months."
"Then she should have borrowed a reliable car," he said. "What was she thinking?"
I shrugged. "Who knows how Maizy's mind works. She could have done something worse." Like doctor up a phony license.
Curt stared grimly at the TV. "I know."
"And she can always reschedule," I said. Again.
"I know," he said.
"You're mad," I said. I could tell, by the tense set of his jaw and the hard line of his lips. Also the way his eyebrows were practically sitting on his cheeks.
His chest heaved in a sigh. "Not mad. Disappointed. I'd like to give her the Civic before it becomes an antique." His dimple flashed. "Speaking of antiques, I saw a story on the news about Oxnard Thorpe's death. Interesting guy."
Someone knocked on my door, saving me from an awkward confession about investigating that death. Curt didn't exactly approve of me playing detective. He didn't approve of me seeing dead people, either, especially since I saw them for real. Still, he kept hanging in there, which went to show he was more than just a pretty face on top of a smoking hot body with a killer sense of humor and a fierce protective streak. Like that wasn't enough.
Another knock.
"Hold that thought," I told him, and got up to find Maizy standing on the landing, holding a bulging backpack.
"I've got a plan," she told me. "I'm sleeping over 'cause we've got to get an early start."
I stepped outside. "This might be a bad time, Maize. You should've called."
"I called your cell," she said. "You should've answered."
"My cell's not on," I said.
She rolled her eyes. "It's never on. Do you get the concept of a cell phone?"
Sure. They were a convenience for telemarketers intent on harassing me.
"Curt's here," I said. "We were talking about…" I drifted off, not wanting to embarrass her.
I should've known better.
"So I'm temporarily blacklisted," she said. "Big deal. A license is only a bribe so the state will let me do something I'm already doing for free. By the way, Honest Aaron fixed the brakes on the 240Z on account of I'm such a good customer, so it can stop now."
"Did he fix the seat, too?"
"Baby steps," she said. "He's a busy man. So check this out." She held up a phony license. There was that ghastly zombie apocalypse photo seen on licenses everywhere, only this one was of Maizy. There was the red New Jersey lettering. She'd even laminated it.
"This is so not a good idea, Maize," I told her. I looked closer. "How'd you do the watermarks?"
She shrugged. "I didn't. Brody Amherst's sister April works at the DMV. I gave her everything and she took care of it for twenty bucks. Now that that's out of the way, we have a reason to go talk to the walking dead."
"And who might that be?" Curt asked from behind me. He was in the doorway, arms crossed, glowering at us. It was a good look for him. It shaded his brown eyes almost black and showed off his biceps. I should make him glower more often. Shouldn't be that hard to do.
"It's a new exhibit at the Franklin Institute," Maizy said without hesitation. "It's pretty cool, Uncle Curt. They've got zombies walking around. You know, mingling."
"Why don't you come in out of the rain and tell me about it," he said. "I might want to go with you."
Maizy shot me a sidelong glance as she dropped her backpack in my tiny foyer. We followed Curt into the living room. Maizy picked up Ashley and sat in the recliner. Curt and I reclaimed our seats on the sofa. The baseball game had been muted. Outside, the rain had gotten a little heavier.
"Help me out," Curt said when we were settled in. "What does April Amherst at the DMV have to do with a zombie exhibit at the Franklin Institute?"
"She sold me passes," Maizy said. "Through Brody."
His expression didn't change. "That was nice of her. Can I see them?"
"I have to pick them up in the morning," Maizy said. "She didn't have them on her at work."
Curt glanced at me. I kept my mouth shut.
After a few seconds, he sighed. "I'm getting a bad feeling here."
"It's probably the spaghetti," Maizy said, gesturing to the remnants of our dinner. "Jamie's not a very good cook."
"Hey," I said, "it was takeout!"
Ashley lifted her head and stared at me. Like she would know. As long as her Meow Mix and treats kept flowing, I was Emeril Lagasse to her.
"You're doing it again," Curt said. "Aren't you?"
"Define it," Maizy said.
His lips pressed together hard. "You're trying to find out who killed Oxnard Thorpe," he said. "Despite the fact you could have both been killed three times over pretending to be the Dynamic Duo."
"There's no pretending here," Maizy said. "We're awesome."
I grinned. I kind of had to agree with her. Maybe we weren't detectives in the traditional sense—okay, no maybe about that—but we'd gotten the job done more than once in the past, so that had to count for something.
Curt sat back. "Okay, what've you got so far?"
Maizy and I glanced at each other.
"Either you tell me," he said, "or I make sure Cam grounds you until your thirtieth birthday."
Maizy opened her mouth.
"And nails your bedroom window shut," Curt added. "And makes you wear a GPS."
Ashley looked at him with alarm.
Maizy closed her mouth.
"There's no need for strong-arm tactics," I told him. "We only talked to the bride and one of the wedding guests, and she kind of pointed the finger…well…" I hesitated, remembering Bitsy's equal opportunity hostility.
"She pointed fingers everywhere," Maizy said. "We're just following up."
"Starting with the walking dead," Curt said. "And who exactly might that be?"
"Oxnard's brother and sister," I said. "I don't really see them killing him since they could barely throw a salad, but money does funny things to people. Although it turns out they aren't rich. They didn't even have $289 to pick up a prescription."
"That's interesting," Maizy said. "Guess Moneybags Oxnard didn't like to share the wealth."
"It was sad, actually," I said, thinking about it. "They were really upset."
Curt frowned. "Wait a minute. Throw a salad?"
"It's a long story," I said.
"No, it's not," Maizy said. "The rich people had a food fight at the wedding. Which was really convenient, because nobody noticed that I left."
He stared at her. "Why were you there?"
"I wasn't," she said. "I just told you, I left."
He sighed
and pushed both hands through his hair. "I know there's no stopping you," he said finally. "Would you at least try to be sensible about this? And give me a heads up next time you want to go talking to zombies so I can go with you."
"We'll be fine," I said. "They're pretty old. We can outrun them if they come after us."
Maizy nodded. "Or at least walk faster," she said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When I was nine, I caught the flu and the chicken pox at the same time and spent the better part of a week getting to know myself inside and out.
It had still been better than sharing a bed with Maizy. She shoved, kicked, and elbowed her way through the night, and when I was good and tenderized, she spooned me until 6:30 came. By then I'd had enough of everything but sleep, so I got up to get dressed.
I wasn't a morning person even when morning meant 7:30. At 6:30, after about two hours of sleep and six hours of defending myself, I felt dizzy and disoriented. The pattern on the carpet seemed to be swimming across the floor, and I very nearly saw two reflections of myself in the bathroom mirror, which horrified me into a different level of consciousness immediately. I think they call it shock.
"I've been thinking," Maizy said from behind me.
I don't know when she'd found the time, what with the four straight hours of Tae Bo.
"Maybe we should stop for doughnuts," she said. "Old people like doughnuts, right?"
I spun around to face her. "You want to bribe them with doughnuts?"
"That's a good idea," she said. She stuck both hands in her hair, ruffled it around some, and pulled them out. Her hair stayed poofed. She glanced at her reflection, nodded once, and walked away.
Show-off.
I had just given up trying to de-frizz and was going for the ever popular ponytail when I heard a knock on my door and the sound of Maizy answering it. Probably Curt. Maybe he'd called in sick so that he could join us. That would be alright with me. Things tended to go more smoothly when Curt was along. Plus he was fun to look at.
Except that wasn't Curt's voice I heard. It was—
"I'm Eunice Kublinski," the voice said. "I work with Jamie. I'm a lawyer."
"Do you like it?" Maizy asked.
"Not so much," Eunice admitted. "I'm not very good at it."
"It's boring, right?" Maizy said. "Maybe I can help. I'm really smart."
I practically ran out of the bathroom before Maizy could help. "Eunice! What are you doing here?"
She gave a start. "I know it's early, but I kind of wanted to talk to you outside of the office. I didn't expect you to have company."
"I took a vacation day, anyway," I said.
"And I'm not company," Maizy told her. "I'm her partner. We're detectives."
Eunice's jaw went slack.
My smile was shaky. "Maizy is kind of a comedian. You never know what she's going to say."
"Oh." She nodded. "I see. Heh heh."
"Not everyone gets me," Maizy said. "I'm an enigma."
"I wish I was an enigma," Eunice said. "I'm just a bad lawyer."
"You don't know that," I told her, although I had my doubts.
"Thing is," she went on, "I thought it'd be easy. Being a lawyer."
"Yeah." Maizy nodded. "Same with the detective thing. It's really something how much planning goes into it. It's exhausting."
"It's all in the details," Eunice said. "Lawyers call it minutiae."
"That's a good word," Maizy said. "It's the minutiae for me, too."
"That's funny," Eunice said. "For you I'd think it'd be the hair."
Maizy blinked. "What about it?"
"You're kidding, right?" Eunice said. "It's blue. And it's…" She held both arms up in a halo shape. "…big."
"She means memorable," I said quickly. "But not in a bad way."
"Well, not in a good way, either," Eunice said. "For a detective, I mean. You need to tone it down. You want to blend."
Well, I had to admit, she was an expert at blending. Right now she was blending into my beige carpet. All except for her mouth.
"This is my mojo," Maizy said, unperturbed. "I don't mess with my mojo."
"Well, your mojo makes you stand out in a crowd," Eunice said. "That's not good for a detective. I'm just saying. As a lawyer."
"What do you want, Eunice?" I asked. "We're getting ready to go somewhere."
"I need some advice," she said. "Wally told me the Dollarz case is a no-go, but I think that's sour grapes because it's my case. And I want to pursue it. After all, men can be as aggressive as they want to be, and no one thinks less of them for it. But I'm supposed to scale it back."
"She's got a point," Maizy told me.
"I know she's got a point," I snapped. "But there's nothing I can do about it."
"You could take me with you," Eunice said. "I could learn a lot from you two. I won't say anything, I promise."
"I don't think that's a good idea," I said.
"Good idea," Maizy said at the same time. "It might be handy to have a lawyer with us."
Eunice brightened. "Where are you going? Are you detecting something?"
I was detecting something, alright, and it had nothing to do with Oxnard Thorpe's demise. Including Eunice in a road trip to the Stepford Thorpes sounded like a very bad idea. "I don't know," I said doubtfully. "We kind of work alone."
"I won't get in the way," Eunice said. "I'll just watch and be quiet. I won't say a word."
"Don't worry about that," Maizy said. "They probably won't hear you anyway. They're old."
"I worry all the time," Eunice told her. "About everything."
"Well," Maizy said, "life's a burden."
Eunice frowned at us.
"You can never be sure," I told her.
Forty minutes later, we drove through the gates of the Golden Leaves Over-55 Community and parked in front of a minuscule house with white siding, blue shutters, a blue front door, and a strip of grass for a lawn. Every house in the community was minuscule with white siding and blue shutters, a blue front door, and a strip of grass for a lawn. Every window showed white blinds or white drapes. No trash cans in sight. No cars parked in the street. No fences.
"This isn't anything like those senior living commercials," Maizy said. "I can see why they'd want to kill Oxnard. Just being near all this conformity is making me hostile."
"It's not that bad," I said. "At least everything's clean."
"So's an operating room," she said. "But I wouldn't want to live there."
"Is this about Oxnard Thorpe?" Eunice asked from the back seat. "I read about that. Are you investigating that?"
"We're detectives, aren't we?" Maizy said.
No answer. Eunice wasn't convinced.
We got out of the car, Eunice holding the box of doughnuts. The lid was popped open. Eunice had powdered sugar around her mouth.
"I hope you don't mind," she said. "I eat when I'm nervous."
I lifted the lid. She'd eaten four doughnuts.
"Try to calm down," I told her.
She nodded and took a deep breath. "I really need to talk to you," she whispered.
Maizy was halfway up the immaculate walk. "Come on, you guys," she called back. "We have to catch them before their naptime."
I rolled my eyes and followed her. "Behave yourselves," I warned them. "This shouldn't take long."
I could hear faint strains of Frank Sinatra inside when I knocked on the door.
Abigail Thorpe opened the door, even smaller and more wrinkly close up, with dark shadows under her eyes and a slackness to her mouth that spoke of exhaustion. She had a cast on her left wrist, bearing her brother's signature in spidery handwriting and a gold star sticker which for some reason I found touching.
She frowned when she saw me standing there, the way you do when you suspect you've met someone before, couldn't quite place them, and didn't really care to try. In the background, Sinatra was telling someone she'd be easy to love.
I stepped in front of Maizy and Eunice. "Miss Thor
pe, my name is Jamie Winters. I was at your brother's wedding. I'm so sorry for your loss. Oxnard was"—a creep—"a fine man."
She squinted at me. "What's that?"
Worth a try. "I'm working for his wife," I said.
"Martha?" she screeched.
I shook my head. "No, I mean—"
"Anna?"
Another head shake. "No, Miss Thorpe, I mean—"
"Rosemarie?"
Oh, for Pete's sake.
"Sybil," I said. "Sybil Sullivan Thorpe."
"Oh. Her." Abigail's wrinkles puckered. "She's a low-class moneygrubber. She never loved my brother."
That seemed to be the popular opinion.
"Why do you say that?" Maizy asked.
Abigail's eyes cut to her. "She wanted his money. And his house. My house. And I wouldn't put it past her to kill him to get it."
My house? Abigail might be small and weak, but she had a mean streak and a motive.
"How did you hurt your wrist?" I asked her, envisioning her shoving Oxnard into the pool in a fit of pique over his marrying Sybil and depriving her of her inheritance.
She glanced at the cast. "I was rolling out cookie dough."
With what? A cinderblock?
"I like cookies," Eunice said. "Especially chocolate chip cookies."
"Have a doughnut," I whispered. I turned to Abigail. "Can we talk? I'm looking into Oxnard's passing."
"And sugar cookies," Eunice said. "I like sugar cookies. And gingerbread."
So much for keeping her mouth shut.
I sighed. "Do you remember where you and your brother went last Saturday night after the ceremony?"
"I don't understand," Abigail said. "Why are you asking me? Do you think I had something to do with this? Why are you accusing me?"
Until the my house comment, I hadn't thought so. Now I wasn't so sure.
"Yes," Eunice whispered, elbowing me in the ribs. "Why?"
"Why is a good question," I agreed. "Why do you think Oxnard's death wasn't accidental?"
"I have my reasons," Abigail told me. "That dreadful woman had reasons to want my brother dead. You'll see." She narrowed her eyes at me. "Who are you to be asking these questions?"
Another good question.
"Who are you again?" she asked, her voice sharpening.
