by Jada Ryker
She stood over the tableau. She felt slightly dizzy. It looked just like the stage set of a play the eighth graders had put on one year. A tragedy, that was. In this case, though, there weren’t any girlish giggles escaping the young actors or shoulders shaking with restrained laughter.
The figure on the chair was sprawled over, as if it had simply slid over to the side. The long red hair covered the face. A knife was protruding from the back. Sprawled on the ground, the other figure was as slim as a half-starved waif.
Clara recognized the woman on the ground as the new nurses’ aid. Or ‘personal care assistant,’ as the management insisted upon calling them. Starla Farrell. She had accepted the job at the assisted living center after the brouhaha several months ago at the Home Away From Home nursing home had led to its being shut down and the residents transferred to other facilities.
Clara thought, Starla must have seen the body in the chair, screamed, and fainted.
Clara realized she was putting off looking at the face of the woman in the chair. If I don’t look, does that mean it’s not real?
Ordering herself to stop being such a baby, Clara took the last steps to the chair. For goodness sake, she had survived the time a couple of eighth grade boys had sneaked chocolate-flavored laxative into the brownie batter.
The principal, once he’d been able to leave the bathroom, had been on a witch hunt for the culprits. She knew that young scamp Shane and his best friend were behind it. What was that other boy’s name? He’d had ears bigger than his runty little body. Buzzie was his name, Buzzie Caldwell. Clara had convinced the principal that the eggs in the batter were spoiled. She’d warned the boys not to ever do such a thing again.
Clara frowned, remembering the knowing look on Mrs. Flaxton’s delicate face all those years ago. She was fairly certain Althea had known the truth.
Clara stared down at the unmoving lump. She’d put this off long enough. She reached out with trembling fingers and awkwardly pulled back the strands of red hair. As she recognized the dead face with its frozen expression of fear, she lowered her eyes.
Clara’s eyes narrowed when she realized she was staring at a thin strip of white. A slip of white paper was sticking out of the dead woman’s pocket over her still chest. Using her forefinger nail and her thumb nail, Clara carefully pulled the scrap of paper free. After all, she had seen enough crime shows not to leave fingerprints. The message on the note was carefully printed in block letters with a blue pen:
MEET ME ON THE PATIO.
The signature, also in block letters, was CLAY.
Clay Napier! The dapper man had been courting Althea Flaxton for months. Surely he would not have asked another woman to clandestinely meet him behind Mrs. Flaxton’s back.
On the ground at her feet, Starla moaned. Clara looked down at Starla. Starla looked up at Clara, then at the contorted face Clara had exposed. Without thinking through the ramifications, Clara stuffed the note into her pocket. Starla screamed. Rather than fainting again, she scrambled to her feet, clutched at Clara, and continued to scream.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Marisa slammed her car’s transmission into reverse, and backed quickly down the driveway.
Ker-chunk!
The impact threw Marisa into her steering wheel and deployed her air bag.
What the hell did I just hit?
Marisa fought the air bag, waved away particles of white powder, and finally pried herself out of the car. Holding onto the side of the car, she stared at the damage. The back of her car was completely smashed. It looked like a sad, red accordion.
The sporty silver car behind hers was virtually untouched. The only sign of damage was a jagged scuff of red paint along the bumper.
A silver car. A very familiar silver car.
The driver’s side door opened.
Alex.
He looked at her bumper. “Just minor damage, Marisa. A good body shop will have that fixed as good as new in no time at all.”
Alex bent over his own car.
His man screech was so high Marisa was positive it was only audible to dogs. “My car! Don’t you look behind you when you back up? Jeez, look at this!” He rubbed at the smudge of red paint on his silver bumper.
“What on earth happened here?”
Alex and Marisa jumped.
Dressed in a top and shorts covered in red and white checks, Verna was standing right next to them. With her stick-thin legs, her short gray hair covered in a matching red-and-white-checked kerchief and a wicker purse over her shriveled arm, the old lady looked like a tiny picnic table. “Is everyone OK? Do you want me to call an ambulance? Or the police?”
Verna’s little dog, his scrawny neck covered by a matching red-and-white-checked bandana, growled. He strained against his leash and tried to nip Marisa’s ankles.
“Punky! Marisa doesn’t have time to play with you right now.” Verna pulled at the red leash.
Punky growled.
Marisa bared her teeth at him and his owner. “Everything’s fine, Verna. Gee, I think I hear your phone ringing. You don’t want to miss an important call.”
Verna cocked her head. “I don’t hear anything. Guess I’d better check, just in case.” She set off toward her little house at a happy gallop.
Marisa laughed. “If she ever gets on a more modern page and gets a cell phone, that gambit won’t work anymore.”
Alex gurgled. Marisa turned to him in surprise. She could swear his eyes dilated in terror as he sagged against the side of his car. “Thank God you deflected her before she could question us! I swear, it’s like she uses some kind of mind control on me or something. This compulsion comes over me to answer her questions! I think she’s an alien from outer space, sent here to gather information about our planet!”
“Alex, get a grip! She’s just a nosy little old lady, for heaven’s sake!”
He grinned at her and madly rolled his eyes. “How do you explain the fact she just appeared out of thin air? Maybe she teleported from her yard and materialized right next to us!”
Marisa couldn’t help laughing. “She always wears her soft-soled orthopedic shoes when she walks the dog. That way, she can sneak up on people. It makes it easier for her to eavesdrop and spy on the neighbors.”
Marisa gasped. She was horrified to see blood welling at the side of his mouth. “Alex! You’re hurt!”
“It’s nothing, Marisa. Just a bump.” He pulled a tissue from his pocket, and dabbed at the spot.
“Thank goodness you’re not hurt, although I’m not sure why I even care. You destroyed my car!”
“You rammed into me, Marisa, not the other way around.”
“You were lurking in my driveway!”
“I was not lurking! That is so unjust of you! I came over to talk to you!”
“You can’t call me on the phone, like a normal, rational human being?”
“I really wanted to talk to you about last night. I was afraid you wouldn’t answer the phone.” He craned his neck, looking in Marisa’s car. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
“He is so not my boyfriend. I never want to see him again as long as I live. As in never. Ever.”
Alex stared into her face.
“What?” Marisa felt cranky.
“You look like you’ve been crying.” One of his long, slender fingers very gently brushed the puffy skin under her eyes.
“I was not crying. I was shot at yesterday. I practically saw Sarah get brutally murdered. We were all at the police station most of the night. I just wrecked my car. In my own driveway! They’re reaction tears.”
“Why don’t you want to see Parvo-virus again? Never and ever are a pretty powerful combination.”
“Huh. You and Tara both call him that.” Marisa sneaked a peek into Alex’s eyes. They were gently trained on her face. She thought she could see compassion in their depths. No trace of a single ‘I told you so.’
“Alex, when I was drinking, I spent a lot of time at the strip club. I experiment
ed with a bisexual lifestyle. That’s over. After rehab, through counseling, I resolved any lingering doubts about my sexuality. I am heterosexual.”
Alex leaned against his car. “Stidham had a problem with your past history with females.”
A statement, not a question. Marisa felt her mouth fly open. “How did you figure that out?”
Alex rubbed at the scar on his car. “When we were at the gym yesterday, I saw him watching your interactions with Taylor, I mean Sarah, in an unusually close way. I also saw you both at the club last night, before you saw me. I could tell he didn’t like it when the naked dancer slithered up and down your body.”
“Diana doesn’t slither,” Marisa corrected automatically. “She... undulates.”
Alex frowned. “Whichever, he certainly didn’t like it.”
Marisa leaned against the car beside Alex. She sighed as she turned her head to look at him. “Last night, after we got back from the police station, I told him he could sleep over. I meant sleep over as in me in my room and him in the spare room, but he misunderstood. He told me casual sex was fine, but he can’t make a commitment to a woman who, in his words, has unresolved sexuality issues. He didn’t want to take a chance on my betraying him with the Mary Kay Lady.”
“What an asshole. You would never do that, to him or anyone else.”
Amazed, Marisa turned to Alex.
A red tinge of embarrassment stained his thin face. “You’re like an onion, Marisa. So many layers. The loving friend, devoted to Mrs. Flaxton layer. The consummate human resources professional layer. The fiercely loyal friend layer. The cat lover layer. The alcoholic in recovery layer. The sexuality experimenter layer. Marisa, you have all of those layers, and probably a bunch I never even dreamed of. Some of those layers don’t conform to society’s conception of normal. But at the center of the layers is a strong, unshakeable core. If you made a commitment, you’d honor it. If you did decide you wanted to be with someone else, male or female, you’d end the committed relationship, not cheat on your partner. You are a woman of honor. If Stidham couldn’t see that in you, then it’s his loss.”
The quiet words were a soothing balm for her bruised spirit. “Thank you, Alex.” A tear slipped down her cheek. Marisa turned her face away. “I think I need a tissue. Allergies.” She grabbed one out of her car, and mopped at her face. She really hoped she did not have any little pieces of tissue stuck to her damp nose. “Jesus, I can’t believe I forgot. Althea called, and left me a voice mail. She said she couldn’t speak freely on the phone, but that it was urgent she speak to me in person. I was on my way to the assisted living center when you plowed into me.”
Alex huffed his way to the passenger side, and opened the door. “Jump in and I’ll take you there. And by the way, you rammed into me. If you take me to court, I’ll subpoena Verna. I bet she caught it on her hidden surveillance camera to beam back to her home planet.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
While the police finished their work on the patio and the grounds, Althea sat at her desk, her fingers resting on the typewriter keys. Who had taken the dead woman’s life? Why had Clara looked at her with pity? Althea shook off her dark thoughts, and her fingers moved on the keys.
Cross to Bear
By Seretha Ranier
Part Four
Not accustomed to sending attractive women into screaming fits, Chris raised both hands and patted the air. He tried to soothe Tina in the same way he would calm a spooked horse. “I’m sorry—”
Tina’s beautiful oval face was twisted in horror. She pointed at the long grass at the base of the cross. “Blood! There’s blood!”
“Wait here.” Chris eased away from Tina and carefully parted the grass. The broken bodies of a possum, two squirrels, and several birds were strewn in the grass. He took a hasty step back, and turned Tina so the bedraggled bodies were out of her sight.
Tina put a hand to her stomach. “Those remind me of the little animal bodies I used to find around the yard at home. The innocent animals Martin loved to torture to death.”
A battered pick-up truck squealed off the highway and tried to stop behind Chris’ little black car. It didn’t quite stop in time, and bumped the smaller sedan. As the truck’s engine kept knocking after the ignition was shut off, the driver’s door opened with a horrendous creaking.
The two crows perched above them watched, their glossy heads twitching and their strident caws mingling in the still summer air.
“Martina and Chris! Showing the proper respect for my son, I see!” Tina’s father raised his beer can in salute, and brought it to his chapped lips. In his other hand, he hefted a large container of beer. Staggering as he picked his way over the uneven ground, he laughed. “Old Martin won’t mind I took one can out of his case of beer!” Stovall carefully stowed the opened box of beer at the foot of the cross. He leaned over to peer at the ground, and barely managed to keep from falling over the rest of the way. “Looks like Martin has been at it with his slingshot again, doesn’t it?”
“Mr. Stovall.” Chris stumbled backwards when the old man teetered near him and caught Chris’ arm for balance.
“Martina, I’m surprised you took the time to be here for your brother. He asked you many times to come home on the weekends and help out around the house.”
Chris put his arm around her slender waist, and squeezed gently.
His body shaking, Stovall raised his head to stare at his son’s cross. “Crows? Hah. You’d think they’d had enough of Martin when he was alive. Or maybe they’re here to dance on his grave, so to speak. If Martin was alive and standing here, he’d go grab the shotgun out of his truck.”
“A shotgun? For a crow?” Chris shook his head in stunned disbelief. “Isn’t that overkill, Mr. Stovall?”
The old man laughed. When it turned into a phlegmatic cough, he pulled a dirty red bandana out of his overalls pocket. “Martin always said shooting crows was much more fun than shooting skeet or paper targets. Neither of those could match the juicy explosions of crow bodies and feathers—”
Her face white, Tina turned away. “Poor little innocent birds.” She looked up at the motionless crows perched on the cross.
Chris followed her gaze. How odd. They seem to be listening, he thought.
Tina’s father slapped his own leg and laughed. “Martina, don’t you remember? Martin always made me plant corn in the back field.”
“That’s right. He wanted to lure the crows in close so he could shoot them.”
Chris was shocked. “Oh, no—”
“Oh, yes.” Stovall was gleeful. “It was always one of his favorite hobbies, watching the little black bodies explode in the air!” He shook with laughter.
The crows screeched, as if in sympathy for their fallen brethren.
“The last thing he did before he peeled out of the driveway with Jason the day he died was to shoot nearly an entire flock of crows. He staggered out of the woods, Jason trailing along behind him as usual. Martin was shouting something about Nancy not being any better than a crow.”
Chris took a moment to say a silent prayer for the souls of the doomed birds. He felt Tina’s trembling hand on his arm. He covered it with gentle fingers.
The old man heaved a deep breath and gazed up at the blank face of the mannequin. “Damn it, boy, why didn’t you take it a little slower on the curve? I taught you when you were a teenager how to make it around that curve with a snoot full! Why didn’t you listen to me?” As he shook his fist at the still figure on the cross, tears rolled down his creased cheeks.
Althea carefully placed the typewritten pages in the desk drawer. She locked it and pocketed the key. Downstairs, she made her way through the gauntlet of other residents, ignoring their excited questions as she passed through the crowded lobby.
She joined Clay on a bench tucked in the corner of the wide porch. Grim paramedics rolled a gurney through the door. The lumpy form under the blanket jiggled as the uniformed men guided it over the planked floor and dow
n the wheelchair ramp.
Althea’s elegant little catlike face puckered. “I simply could not bring myself to sit on the patio, Clay. Even though the police have finished their work and left, I just can’t stand the thought of sitting there where she was murdered.” Althea shivered.
The men adroitly folded up the legs of the gurney, and slid it into the back of the ambulance.
Clay patted her hand. “Many people look at us and merely dismiss us with the thought that we’re at the end of our lives. They don’t realize people like you and I are young and lively on the inside. We tend to take it very much to heart when one of us is struck down.”
With a belching of diesel fumes, the ambulance tried to start, and rattled back to silence. Finally, emitting a black cloud, it rolled slowly down the tree-lined drive. The lights and siren were chillingly absent.
Althea rested her head against his shoulder, and breathed in his clean scent. Idly, she watched as a silver car sped up the drive. She cocked her head. It was hurtling closer to the ambulance, with no sign of stopping.
“Clay, that silver car—”
Clay rose from the bench.
The car fishtailed to a halt in front of the ambulance, blocking it.
A short, muscular young man catapulted out of the driver’s side.
One of the paramedics slid out of the passenger side of the ambulance, and slammed the door angrily. Althea could see his mouth moving, and he was waving his hands in agitation. The compact man in a white t-shirt and khaki shorts was shouting and pointing at the back of ambulance.
The passenger side of the car opened, and a young woman erupted from it. Her brown braid flopping behind her and her bare legs pumping, she was a blur of peach tank top and denim shorts as she sped to the back of the ambulance.
“That woman—” Althea rose to her feet. She took a few disbelieving steps. “She looks like Marisa.”
Clay and Althea hurried across the porch and along the winding driveway.
