Flowers for Her Grave

by Judy Clemons

  “Now, turn around, nice and slow, hands up.”

  Casey turned, and as she did, she saw that her apartment had been torn apart, reminiscent of Maria’s house, only far worse. The furniture was overturned, the curtains ripped off their hangers, and silverware and broken plates littered the little she could see of the kitchen. Casey’s eyes flicked to her hidey-hole vent. The cover still lay unmolested against the wall.

  Her eyes finally landed on Sissy, who stood in the middle of the living room, pointing a gun at Casey.

  Sissy? But she was with Marcus, being charmed by his love and enthusiasm.

  Wasn’t she?

  Casey held her hands out in front of her. “It’s okay, Sissy. It’s all right.”

  “No, Daisy. It’s not.” Her hand shook.

  “Sissy. Let’s talk a little bit.”

  “I’m done talking! Move over here!” She jerked the gun toward the overturned couch, and Casey picked her way slowly across the floor, over and around chairs and kitchen utensils. She should run. Take off. Like she’d told her class. But she couldn’t, not with Sissy holding a gun four feet from her face. And not with Casey’s things—her ID, Omar’s hat, her other treasures—held hostage. Not with the high likelihood that Sissy would bring attention here to this place, and Casey’s true identity would be discovered. And not when Casey could bring down this woman with a few well-aimed strikes.

  “What do you want?” Sissy screeched.

  Casey was confused. “Nothing. I don’t want anything.”

  Sissy’s face darkened. “Oh, sure. That’s what your little stunt with the folders tells me. Oh, yes, the women called me. I suppose my folder is tucked under my apartment door, too?”

  “Actually, I put it in your office.”

  “Of course. The women said you’d been around. They all sounded so happy that you were there, handing the information back, saying we’re all free. Photos. Newspaper articles. Bank accounts. Until tomorrow. Who are you going to tell then, Daisy? How soon will you be making your demands? Why can’t you people just leave us alone? First…” She swallowed loudly. “First Brandon. Now you. Can’t a woman just start over? Do it right the second time?”

  “Sissy, I gave the folders back so you could destroy them. I’m not going to use them against you.”

  Sissy’s face crumpled, her gun hand dropping slowly toward the floor. Casey made sure she had her balance and took a step closer, getting in range to grab Sissy’s arm. Sissy swung her hand up, the gun barely missing Casey face. Casey stumbled backward, tripped over a pillow, and fell.

  “You’re just like him, aren’t you? You could let it go, allow me to move on, but you won’t. You want to drain me dry. Why? Why can’t you just let me be?”

  Casey scooted back, crab-like, until she was at her balcony door. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea to stay instead of bolting out the door. She was tired. Tired of thinking, and tired of tragedy. And now she was tired and trapped. If she could just get the sliding door open, she could roll out. She’d seen that first day how she could swing to a neighboring balcony, and escape. There was no way Sissy could follow, in her state, and it would be much harder to shoot a target swinging from one balcony to another. Casey reached up toward the handle of the door, remembering too late the dowel rod in the sliding track which would keep the door from opening.

  “Don’t move!” Sissy screamed. “Please…please don’t move.” She sobbed and lurched forward, the gun just out of Casey’s reach. “Where are your copies? I couldn’t find them when Brandon lived here, either—where do you people hide your dirty, awful papers?”

  “Sissy, I swear, I’m not blackmailing you. I don’t have my own copy. I gave you the only one.”

  “But I thought I’d already destroyed the only one. And then you come at me with another.” She shuddered. “I’m sure she knew where it was. But she wouldn’t tell me, either.” Her eyes were wild. “So I made sure she couldn’t tell anyone anymore. She couldn’t be in it with him. Not for one more day.”

  Casey’s breath hitched. “Who are you talking about, Sissy?”

  “Andrea, of course, the little slut. Taking my man. Taking Brandon. My sweet Brandon.”

  “But Brandon was blackmailing you.”

  “No, not once he got to know me. He gave me what he had on me. Told me to burn it. And I did. She must have had another copy. But now it’s too late to know. I should have waited.”

  “Sissy. What did you do to Andrea? Did you…are you the one who killed her?”

  Of course Maria hadn’t done it. That solution had felt wrong all along. Richie and Andrea had promised to help her. And Maria had gotten Richie and Andrea together in the first place. Richie loved Andrea. It wasn’t a love triangle. It was a triangle of friends.

  Maria hadn’t killed Andrea.

  The cops were chasing after an innocent woman.

  A tear rolled down Sissy’s cheek. “Andrea took my man.”

  Sissy’s gun hand again sank toward the floor as she cried. Casey slowly tipped up onto her feet, into a squat position. “Sissy, you did all that planning to get Andrea? The security cameras, and Maria’s key?”

  The gun rose again. “That was all easy. Maria keeps an extra key in her desk, and our security isn’t exactly high tech. I just wanted to talk to Andrea. To tell her Brandon was mine. That he wasn’t going to blackmail me anymore, so she should forget him.”

  Casey balanced on the balls of her feet, ready to spring up at the first opportunity. “So you lured Krystal away from the aerobics room. You sent her a fake note from the guard.”

  “I knew she couldn’t ignore an opportunity to screw somebody, especially that hot little number.” Sissy’s eyes went unfocused, as if she were thinking of Krystal, and what she and the guard might have gotten up to. Her hand dropped a fraction, and Casey lunged forward. She grabbed Sissy’s wrist, lowered her head, and rammed Sissy in the gut with her shoulder, sending her back several steps, like she was sacking a quarterback.

  Sissy screamed, clawing Casey in the back of the neck. Casey reared up and headbutted Sissy in the chin. Blood spurted from Sissy’s lip, spraying into Casey’s eyes. Casey jerked her head away, and Sissy twisted the gun toward Casey. Casey tried to gain some traction, but slid on a sofa cushion and fell backward. Sissy threw herself on top of her, howling. Casey raised her foot just in time to catch Sissy’s ribs on her way down, and Sissy jerked hard sending the gun clattering to the floor. Sissy lunged for the gun while Casey reached down and yanked out the dowel rod that braced the balcony door. Sissy swung the gun toward her, and Casey smacked her with the rod, hitting her wrist and sending the gun flying backward, into the entryway.

  Sissy scrambled toward the gun, beating Casey there, and raised it, aiming at Casey’s heart. Casey froze.

  “I didn’t mean to kill her,” Sissy sobbed. “I didn’t want to kill her. I just…” She wiped her nose with her sleeve. “I just wanted to scare her. To get her to leave him alone! Leave my Brandon alone!”

  Casey eyed Sissy and the gun. There was no way she could reach Sissy before she got a shot off. No way Casey could reach down and pick up anything to throw, or dodge behind something that could protect her. Nothing there would stop a bullet. There was a good chance Sissy would miss, if she did shoot, but then the bullet might go right out the window, hitting someone down at the pool.

  Casey decided to just stay still and talk, hoping she could find an opening to strike. “So what made you go after Andrea that night?”

  Sissy blinked away tears. Casey couldn’t help but think Sissy’s bright blue outfit had the opposite of its usual effect. Instead of making Sissy look like a fresh, vibrant blueberry, she looked old and pale. Tired. Washed out.

  “That day,” Sissy said. “Before class. They were talking about who had spent time in this apartment. I wasn’t surprised about Laurie, of course, I knew she was in love with Brandon. I wasn’t surprised about Krystal, either. She screws anything that moves. But Andrea? Why was K
rystal trying to cover up the fact that Andrea knew this apartment? It could only be…it could only be because Andrea was in love with Brandon, too.” She sobbed. “And then to find out later that she was engaged to him!”

  Her gun hand shook so much Casey was ready to hit the ground. If only she could get a step closer she could disarm her.

  “I just wanted to talk to her,” Sissy said. “I was sure if I told her he and I were in love she would back off. She was always so nice. But she kept lying. Saying she wasn’t involved with him. Saying she didn’t even like him. That she hadn’t seen or heard anything from him since he’d left. Why did she lie to me? Why?”

  “Sissy, about that engagement—”

  “She wouldn’t listen to me. She turned her back on me, saying I needed to get a hold of myself, and she would talk to me when I was calmer. The nerve! I left her and sat in the office—your office, I mean. I tried to calm down, but I just got madder and madder.”

  She looked mad now, and not just in the angry sense. Casey was ready to move closer when Sissy blinked and focused on her again. “So I grabbed one of those weights by the desk, and went back. She was in the shower area then. Her back was still turned. I was going to talk some more, but I was so angry. So I hit her. I hit her, and hit her, and hit her.” She chopped with the gun, as if she were demonstrating. “Until she was just lying there. Staring up at me. Just staring.”

  Her eyes flicked up to Casey’s, and she steadied the gun. “I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t. All I wanted was for Brandon to love me and not her. And I realized then that he would. She wouldn’t be in the way anymore. So I told him…he couldn’t have her. She was dead. He had to come back to me.”

  Casey’s breath hitched. “You told Brandon Andrea was dead?”

  “He needed to know so he could move on. Back to me.”

  “You knew where Brandon was?”

  “Of course I knew,” Sissy said. “I put him there.”

  It suddenly all made sense. Dylan’s theory about a Sugar Mama. It was true. And the Mama was Sissy.

  “Sissy. When did you tell him this?”

  Her lips trembled. “Yesterday.”

  Oh, God. Yesterday. The day he died. “You told him you killed her?”

  “Of course not. Just that she was dead.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said he wasn’t engaged to her. He wouldn’t tell me the truth, either. Even then, even after she was dead. All that time I’d been worried about him wanting Krystal, and I had no idea it was Andrea. The one woman here I liked. And neither of them would tell me the truth.”

  “Sissy, they weren’t—”

  “I was there, at his apartment, cooking him supper. Cooking for him. And he told me he would be staying only long enough to get his things together, his papers, his money, and then he would be gone.”

  “Without you.”

  “Of course without me!” Her eyes shone. “I was making dinner for him, in the apartment I was paying for, and he told me I was nothing to him. Nothing.” Her grip tightened on the gun, her knuckles white. “He came into the kitchen, and I …” She gasped, tears choking her.

  “You stabbed him, didn’t you?”

  “Just once, at first, just a little. And then again. And again. He was so surprised. Blood went everywhere. All over the counter, and the food, and my…my clothes. He begged me to help him. To save him. But it was too late. Too late.” She took a shuddering breath.

  “I’m sorry, Sissy. I’m so sorry. Can you put the gun down now?”

  She swept it up, pointing it straight at Casey again. “And now you know. But you knew already, didn’t you? That’s why you want to continue his work. Blackmail me some more. Because that’s what people like you do.”

  “Sissy, I do not want to blackmail you. I was bringing you the folder so you could get rid of it.”

  She was crying in earnest now. Tears streamed down her face. “It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. Brandon doesn’t love me. He never loved me. He loves her. He loves her.” She dissolved into sobs, keeping the gun trained on Casey.

  “Sissy. Sissy, listen. Listen!”

  Sissy hiccupped, the gun wavering dangerously.

  Casey put her hands out, as if that could protect her if the gun went off. “Sissy, they were telling you the truth.”

  Her forehead wrinkled. “About what?”

  “About not being engaged.”

  Her grip tightened on the gun. “But I heard her parents say it. They said she was engaged. That two weeks ago something happened and she stopped speaking about him. Two weeks ago Brandon left.”

  “Yes, I know. But Andrea wasn’t engaged to him. She was engaged to Richie.”

  Sissy’s face went blank, and then paled so quickly she looked like she was going to faint. “Richie? The little…but I told him he couldn’t come anywhere near here, or I would sue him for everything. He was so…”

  “He was a scapegoat. When people got injured you had to have someone to blame, didn’t you, Sissy? He may have been unqualified, but he wasn’t malicious. He only wanted to do good.”

  “But I’d hired him. If people looked too closely…Andrea was engaged to him? Not my Brandon?”

  Still on about her Brandon. Even after she’d killed him.

  “But that means Brandon was telling me the truth. He wasn’t going to marry her. He must have loved me! He loves me, after all!” Her face lit up, and she looked over Casey’s shoulder, out toward the ocean, and the pool.

  Casey leapt forward, her hand swinging up to push Sissy’s gun hand away, but Sissy saw her, and her finger was tightening on the trigger, and—

  “Hi-yah!” A flattened hand arced through the air, chopping Sissy at the base of her neck. Sissy gave a startled grunt, and collapsed, dropping the gun. Tamille stood in the entryway, hands on her hips, like a superhero. All that was missing was the cape.

  Several moments passed before Casey was able to speak. “Tamille?”

  Tamille showed all of those shiny white teeth and nudged the unconscious Sissy with her toe. “Good thing I decided to ignore your plea for solitude, isn’t it?”

  Casey slumped onto the bottom of the overturned easy chair. “Company does have its good points.”

  Tamille looked at the woman lying at her feet. “Want to explain?”

  “Huh-uh.”

  “Didn’t think so. But I do suppose this is something for the cops?”

  “Most definitely.”

  Tamille smiled again and pulled out her phone. “So how about I go ahead and call them?”

  “You do that. But do you mind calling from the hallway? I have something I need to take care of.”

  Tamille looked around at the destroyed furniture and shrugged. “Whatever. Just don’t do anything more to Sissy. She should be out until long after the police get here.”

  “I won’t hurt her. I promise.”

  Tamille went out into the hallway, but didn’t close the door. Casey hoped she wouldn’t see what she was about to do.

  “What is going on here?” Death suddenly stood just inside the balcony door. “Did I miss all the excitement again? And what is Sissy doing here?”

  “Long story short—she killed Andrea and Brandon.”

  Death about choked. “Seriously?”

  Casey took off the air conditioning vent cover and pulled out Maria’s folder, the only one that was left.

  “You’re getting those ready to give to the cops now?”

  Casey held up the file. “You know how we all figured Maria was the killer, and sent the cops off chasing her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Like I just told you—she didn’t do it.”

  “Right. So?”

  “Think about it. She’s out there, on the run from the cops—or the INS, anyway—trying to keep her kids safe, as well as this man who just lost his fiancée and thinks he will get taken to court if he shows up anywhere near here. He can’t even mourn her properly.”

  “What
does that have to do with her papers?”

  Casey shook her head. “You don’t get it, do you? What’s the difference between her and me?”

  “You’re actually a citizen? She’s got two kids? She has a friend? She’s not intimately acquainted with moi?”

  “Okay. So there are differences. But we’re both…” She worked to form the word. “Fugitives. We’re wanted by the law. We have no place to call home. No…no stability.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to give her a head start.”

  Casey pulled everything out of the folder, from the expired green card to the failed citizenship applications to the attempts to bring over Maria’s family, ripped the papers into tiny little pieces, and flushed them down the toilet.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  “At least Sissy didn’t break the skin,” Tamille said. “Who knows what diseases she’s carrying with the kind of company she kept.”

  They were in Casey’s office. Casey sat on the examination table, while Tamille doused the shallow claw marks on the back of her neck with antiseptic, just in case. Binns sat with one hip on the desk, Gomez leaned against the whirlpool, and Death stood just inside the door. The room was packed.

  “So I guess we were all wrong about Maria,” Binns said.

  “Way wrong.” Casey waved Tamille away so she could pull the shoulder of her shirt back up and not feel so exposed in front of Gomez. “But even now I can’t believe how it turned out. All of it about a guy who really wasn’t worth it.”

  “Oh, what a tangled web a blackmailing, unethical scamp weaves,” Death said.

  Casey sighed heavily, feeling exhaustion from her head to her toes.

  “You going to be okay, Daisy?” Gomez’ voice was gentle, and Casey wasn’t the only woman to look at him with interest. He colored slightly, and stood a little straighter. “What? I can’t be concerned?”

  Binns gave her head a little shake. “Thank you for all you did, Ms. Gray. And you, Ms. Jackson.”