Gretchen Birch Boxed Set (Books 1-4)

by Deb Baker

  Gretchen scooted to the middle of the backseat and leaned forward. “If you had evidence that your son had killed your sister, would you make a room box and accuse him at an unveiling with a room filled with complete strangers? What kind of mother would expose her child that way?”

  April humphed. “What kind of kid would kill his mother or his aunt?”

  “Exactly!”

  “Let’s check him out anyway,” Nina said, diplomatically. “We should rule him out together. A unanimous decision, since we are a t-e-a-m.”

  “Go team,” April said. “I could hardly drink the coffee after our discussion of Arsenic Anna and rat poison.”

  “Britt and I are becoming friends,” Nina said. “I should even be suspecting her.”

  “The coffee was fine,” Gretchen said. “It came out of one carafe.”

  “That was smart thinking,” April said.

  “There’s so much to learn about detecting,” Nina said.

  “Live and learn,” April said.

  “I think you mean,” Gretchen said, “learn and live.”

  Chapter 32

  They should have saved the mission to Ryan’s house for another day. “Look at the commotion,” April said.

  “Keep going right past,” Gretchen said to Nina from the backseat. From now on, she was going to drive herself. She felt trapped in her aunt’s car.

  A police officer tried impatiently to wave them past when Nina slowed down. “I said, keep going,” Gretchen repeated, raising her voice.

  Matt Albright’s unmarked blue car was parked at the curb. She saw Detective Brandon Kline standing on the broken-down porch talking to a cop. Brandon turned and shouted something to the officer near their car. The cop gave way, and motioned them to pull over.

  Nina followed his direction. Gretchen moaned.

  “The cops are searching Ryan’s pad,” April said, breaking into her version of street talk. “Look at all those strung-out crackheads.” She pointed to a pathetic group of five huddled at the corner of the house. They were in varying degrees of undress. Only one wore a shirt, all were barefoot, and if the others hadn’t been bare-chested, Gretchen wouldn’t have been able to figure out which were males. The one wearing the shirt was still an unknown as far as sexual persuasion went.

  Gretchen slunk down in the backseat and crawled onto her stomach. The dogs, always ready for a ripping good time, used her as a runway. Tiny, sharp claws raked her back as they ran back and forth.

  “What are you doing?” Nina said with more than a hint of disbelief in her tone.

  “Hiding.”

  “I can see that. But from whom?”

  “I vowed never to have anything to do with that womanizer again. If you had driven by when I asked you to, I wouldn’t be flat on the seat with little nails piercing my skin. I’ll be able to wear studs in the holes by the time they’re done with me.”

  Okay. Gretchen was pretty sure she was acting immature. That’s precisely what the detective did to her and why she was avoiding him. When was the last time she hid out in a car? She remembered exactly when—fourteen years ago—her sophomore year in high school, right before Eddie Bremen caught her with another guy. She’d tried to break it off, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer, so she had ducked down to protect her date. It hadn’t worked. Eddie Bremen had really clobbered her date.

  Slinking was justified that time, and it was justified this time. Hopefully, she’d have better luck than last time. “What brings the pleasure of your company?” she heard Matt say right next to the car door. “And why is Gretchen hiding in the backseat?”

  April giggled.

  Gretchen shot up. “I wasn’t hiding. I was looking for my…uh…contact. It jumped out of my eye.”

  She didn’t even wear contacts, but he couldn’t possibly know that.

  “I’ll help you.” Matt opened the backseat and carefully edged in, his eyes on her instead of on the floor. “I lose mine every once in awhile. It’s a real pain.”

  “I found it!” Gretchen exclaimed, pretending to cup the lens between her hands. “Give me some room, and I’ll plunk it back in. You have more important things to do.”

  Brandon Kline came up behind them. “We haven’t found a thing. Not so much as a roach clip or dope pipe. The place is squeaky clean.”

  Matt shook his head. “Impossible.”

  “They insist this is a rehab house. Junior over there…” He pointed at the ragged group, “claims he’s the sponsor.”

  “Let’s make him prove ownership,” Matt said.

  Brandon’s gaze settled on Nina. He smiled.

  Nina batted her eyes. “I should do a reading for you as soon as you wrap up this case,” she said. Gretchen would have to teach Nina the finer points of conversing with the opposite sex. I should do a reading? What an awful pick-up line.

  “I’d like that,” he said, sounding like he meant it.

  Nina eyed up his back end as he moved through the police officers, barking orders.

  Matt winked at Gretchen.

  She ignored him, glancing at the so-called homeowner and the pink stucco house. What if it was true? What if the house really was used for drug rehabilitation, and not drug deals? “Ryan’s bizarre behavior could have been completely due to the epinephrine,” she said, thinking out loud.

  “He certainly was shot full of the stuff,” Matt said. “Heavy usage for at least a week, maybe longer, according to the physicians. He’s lucky to still be alive. He must have a death wish.”

  “Did they find any other drugs in his system?” Gretchen asked, trying to overlook her personal issues with the detective. Act grown-up. Drop the inner pout and move on.

  “That was the surprising thing,” Matt said. “Not a trace of any street drugs.”

  “What does he say to explain his condition?”

  “He’s disoriented and lethargic. Says a goddess was serving him, according to the medical staff. I don’t know when, if ever, he’ll be lucid enough to give answers that make sense. His physician hasn’t cleared him for questioning yet.” He looked over at the house. “I better get back inside.”

  “We want to look at the kitchen,” Nina said. “We’re studying crimes and the effects on kitchens.”

  April giggled, which was all she seemed to be able to do when she was too close to Matt. Did Gretchen act that dopey around him? She hoped not.

  “You can look through the window from the outside of the house,” Matt answered, wearing a look of amused confusion. “But stay away from the tenants. By the way, Gretchen, you don’t wear contacts.”

  “Busted,” April said. “What tipped you off?”

  Gretchen wished April would go back to giggling. So what if he caught her lying? Gretchen leveled Matt with a steely glare just in case he thought his approval mattered to her.

  “A true contact wearer,” he said, “holds a contact like this.” He pressed his fingers together. “We don’t cup them in our palms. And the terminology isn’t ‘pluck’ it in. It’s ‘pop’ it in. They don’t jump out of our eyes, either.” He grinned. “But I still like you, even if you aren’t one of us.”

  “I’m a contact wearer,” April giggled.

  Gretchen marched behind him toward the house with Nina and April taking up the rear and, oh no, all the dogs. “Potty stop,” Nina said when Gretchen scowled at her. “As good a place as any.” Nina glanced at the trash in the weedy yard. “I won’t have to clean up any doggy do. It’ll blend right in.” Nimrod and Tutu trotted with Nina. Enrico ran alongside his new owner, with his lip pulled up on one side to show his back teeth. He had a nasty gleam in his beady little eyes.

  Matt shook a thumb over his right shoulder and addressed one of the officers. “They want to look in the window. Let them.”

  He entered the house with Brandon. A band of police officers maintained a circle around the motley bunch of tenants. The cops remained a respectable distance away, trying to appear casual and unconcerned. But they kept a sharp eye out.r />
  Judging by the group’s state of undress, no one was carrying a weapon. The most that could happen would be that one could run away. “Who owns the house?” Gretchen asked them when she was close enough. She kept her voice low.

  “We don’t have anything to say,” said one with a shaved head. “We want an attorney.”

  “Have you been arrested?”

  “No. But we aren’t talking to any cops.”

  “Do I look like a police officer?” Gretchen said, suspecting that the bald one was the homeowner. She pointed at Nina and April. “Do they look like cops?”

  “She’s right,” another one chortled. “What kind of cops would have dogs like that?”

  Good reasoning. This one, at least, wasn’t all drugged out. Up close, Gretchen could tell they were all men, even the shirt-person. “I’m a friend of Ryan’s,” she said. “I’m trying to help him.”

  “You’re too late, he’s totally whacked out. We should have thrown him out as soon as we found out he was doing drugs again,” Baldy said. “We knew he was messing up. Now look what’s happened, man.”

  “Nina and April, why don’t you check out the kitchen?” Gretchen said. Her eyes scanned the group, then she asked, “Which window is the kitchen?” No one answered, but a few eyes shifted to a window. “Try that one there.” She pointed.

  The two women hustled over to the house. They grabbed the bottom of the windowsill and tipped up onto their toes to peer in. “It’s too high,” April announced. “I can’t see in.”

  “Boost Nina up,” Gretchen called before scooting to the opposite side of the huddle. She didn’t want to see what was going to happen next. Right before she turned her back, she saw April plant her solid legs and lace her fingers together.

  “Hold the dogs,” Nina said behind her.

  “How can I hold them and boost you?”

  “How can I go up with them? Put the leashes around your wrist, like that. Ready?”

  “Ryan was doing drugs,” Gretchen said to the tenants, a statement rather than a question. “But you still wanted to help him?”

  “He dried out while he was here,” one with dreadlocks said. “No alcohol, no drugs, but he slipped back. We hoped it was temporary.”

  “Don’t talk to her,” another one said.

  “She’s a friend of Ryan’s. How’s he doing anyway?”

  “He’s alive,” Gretchen said. “But barely. And he’s hallucinating.”

  “He was doing good, and then all of a sudden, he was all screwed up. Nobody could talk to him. Everything that came out of his mouth was total garbage.”

  Gretchen tapped a piece of paper trash on the ground with her foot, thinking. “He talked about a goddess.”

  “We got that shtick, too. He claimed some fairy chick visited his bedroom at night.”

  “We never saw her.”

  “That’s cuz she didn’t exist.”

  “Duh.”

  “He said she flew in the window.”

  “He said a lot of dumb things. When was the last time you saw a fairy flying?”

  “When was the last time you saw a fairy standing around?”

  Gretchen heard a commotion behind her, then a shriek, then a thud. She tried to block it out. “Bad news, man,” the one wearing the shirt said, referring to Ryan. Or so, Gretchen thought. He was facing the kitchen investigators. She hoped the comment wasn’t about Nina and April.

  “Watch where you’re falling,” April wailed. “You could have killed Enrico.”

  “You dropped me,” Nina screamed.

  “I released you. There’s a difference.”

  “Can you talk to the cops, intervene for us?” the bald one asked Gretchen. “We really are running a rehab program.”

  Gretchen believed him. He and the other occupants were as much on the fringes of society as the homeless people she knew. But druggies? When she looked into their eyes, they were clean and bright, without the hopeless, empty gaze associated with drug addicts. They didn’t have that hunted, haunted fear she’d seen in Ryan’s eyes, or the wasted away, thin bodies.

  Nina stomped past carrying Tutu. April heaved off from the side of the house and made for the car with the other two miniature dogs.

  “We’re going to the hospital to see how Ryan’s doing,” Gretchen said to the bald one.

  “Say hi. We hope he makes it.”

  Gretchen hustled after April. She peeked in the entrance to the house as she passed but didn’t see the two detectives. Why was she even checking? She didn’t care. Nope. Not one teeny tiny bit.

  Chapter 33

  “Ryan did it,” April insisted, pounding a plump fist on the dashboard to stress her point. “He killed his mother. I don’t care about wallpaper. We’re getting too wrapped up in kitchens. Forget the room box. He’s the one.”

  “His kitchen was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen,” Nina said, darting through traffic. She had recovered quickly from her graceless fall. “Crud everywhere. Men shouldn’t be allowed to live in large groups. They’re pigs. I can’t even imagine how awful the bathroom would be.” She shivered for effect.

  “All I saw was your rear end,” April said. “And then that lizard darted across the wall right next to us. He stopped and stared me right in the eye. Sorry I dropped you.”

  “Forgiven,” Nina chirped. Their friendship had come a long way. A month ago, Nina would have held a grudge against April much, much longer. This one was over within minutes.

  The safest thing to do was get them back on task before one of them had a chance to say the wrong thing and start another disagreement.

  “The ICU staff wouldn’t give me any details about Ryan’s condition,” Gretchen said. “They gave me the patient privacy protection speech. All they’ll say is that he’s on that hospital floor.”

  April shook her head. “You’ll never get inside.”

  “We’ll never get inside,” Nina corrected her. “We are a t-e-a-m.”

  Gretchen visualized all three of them and the dogs attempting to sneak into the hospital. The Three Stooges, that’s what they would be. They could stuff the canines inside their purses, even Tutu, who was a bit large for a handbag. She chuckled in spite of herself.

  “I think one of us should go in,” she said. “One will stand a better chance,”

  “You’re the one, boss,” April said. “You’ve established a bond with the kid.”

  “You have to be kidding. He thought I was a cop! He decked me. The next time, on his porch, he wasn’t much friendlier.”

  “See, he’s warming up, boss.”

  “If I’m the boss, why am I in the backseat?”

  “We’re your chauffeurs.”

  Gretchen looked around at her luxury ride. Goo dripping from the back windows and dog hair coating the seats and her clothes. Nimrod climbed up her chest and licked her face. Tutu sat as far away from Gretchen as possible, pretending she didn’t exist. Enrico was getting used to her. He only growled now when she shifted her legs or made sudden movements.

  “How come I’m the boss every time you don’t want to do something?” Gretchen wanted to know.

  “I’d go in,” her aunt said. “I’d do it myself, but I’m recovering from my tramatic fall to the ground.”

  Nina pulled into the visitor’s parking lot. “We’ll keep the getaway car running.”

  “Thanks. t-e-a-m.” How bad could it be? It wasn’t like she was trying to break into a gated senior community. Or like she’d disguised herself as a nurse. She couldn’t get busted for impersonating medical personnel. Was that illegal? “Anyone have a nurse’s uniform?” she asked. “I could sail right through with the proper attire.”

  “Getoutadacar,” April said.

  The gangsta doll appraiser was starting to get on Gretchen’s nerves. She got out, strolled casually into the hospital, requested the directions to ICU at the information counter, and took the elevator to the second floor.

  So far, so good.

  The roadblock
came when she dead-ended at an imposing set of doors with a sign that said Restricted Area. A nurse passed her and pushed a button on the wall. The door swung out. The nurse walked inside.

  Gretchen peered through the massive doors, studying the layout. The door swung shut. Easy enough.

  “May I help you?” a different nurse said the instant Gretchen stepped over the threshold into intensive care. No tiptoeing past the guards, after all.

  “I’m here to see Ryan Maize,” Gretchen said.

  “One minute, please.” The nurse did something in a computer. “Are you family?”

  “I’m his aunt.”

  “He’s in room 220. It’s down this hall.”

  Gretchen grinned all the way down the corridor. Detective Albright should take a few lessons from her. He hadn’t managed to get past the nurses station with his impressive credentials and flashy badge. All she had to do was walk in and ask to see Ryan.

  The patient looked like something out of a bad sci-fi movie. Tentacles jutted from the sheets on both sides of the bed, carrying colored fluids, some flowing in, some flowing out. Monitors hummed and beeped, displaying information Gretchen couldn’t read.

  His eyes were open.

  “How are you feeling?” She stopped at the foot of the bed.

  “Not so good.”

  “You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “I’m not so sure.” Ryan didn’t appear to be delusional, certainly not catatonic. Then, “Where’s the carnival man?” he said, crushing her optimistic outlook for him.

  Gretchen realized he might mean the doctor. She wasn’t very good at street slang. “Do you need something for pain? I can call the nurse.”

  “Yah.”

  “Talk to me first.”

  He looked at her without recognition, his eyes glassed over from either inner demons or the effects of medication, or both.

  “What happened to you?” she asked.

  “A little friendly connection gone bad.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Ryan didn’t answer. He closed his eyes.

  “Did someone do this to you?”

  He nodded and squinted up at her. “Fruit of the gods. The end is unclear. It’s what happens when you buy in. Trust is elusive.”