Whole Lotta Trouble

by Stephanie Bond

  Her mother poured some of each into her palm, then rubbed her hands together, blending the floral and mints into a relaxing perfume. Then she placed her hands on Felicia’s shoulders and began to knead very gently between the straps of her cotton tank.

  At first the sensation of touch was intense, but Felicia set her jaw against the jolt, and after a few seconds, the pressure on her shoulders seemed to draw the pain from her head. Incredulous, she yielded to her mother’s ministrations. Julia massaged across her shoulders and the back of her neck in a slow rhythm, again and again until Felicia was sure her mother’s hands must be aching. Then she pressed the pads of her fingers against the base of Felicia’s skull to the point just shy of new pain and released, triggering a buoyant rush of relief. Felicia groaned with gratitude.

  “I’m going to rewet this cloth,” her mother said, then padded toward the kitchen.

  Felicia lay in stunned silence. Never had her mother tended to her when she was sick—there had been maids and day nurses for that kind of thing. And how had she known what to do anyway? Felicia was still marveling over her mother’s skill when Julia came back into the room, carrying the folded cloth.

  Feeling much improved, Felicia turned over on her own accord, straightened her tank top, and reached up to position the now-cool cloth her mother placed on her forehead.

  “Better?”

  Felicia nodded and gave her mother a bewildered smile. “Thank you. How did you learn to do that?”

  Julia eased into a midcentury harvest gold recliner. “Your father used to have terrible migraines.”

  Felicia blinked. They never spoke of her father…ever. “He did?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “No.”

  Julia nodded. “He’d get them a couple of times a month. I did some reading and learned that some doctors suggested massage.” She smiled. “It always seemed to make your father feel better.” She expelled a little laugh. “Either that or he just liked the attention.”

  Felicia breathed in and out. She didn’t know what to say, she was afraid to break the spell of her mother talking about her dad fondly. “Do you know what caused his headaches?”

  “Stress. Peter hated his job.”

  Surprise filtered through Felicia. “I never knew that.”

  “We were good at keeping things from you…and Peter was good at keeping things from me.” Julia’s voice suddenly sounded broken…old.

  “I’m sorry, Mother.”

  Julia looked up. “What are you sorry about?”

  “That Peter wasn’t a better man.”

  Julia was quiet for so long that Felicia thought she wasn’t going to answer. “I’m sorry about that, too. I’m sorry that I picked Peter to be your father. And I’m sorry that we didn’t have another child so you wouldn’t have been so lonely.”

  In the semidarkness, Felicia couldn’t see her mother’s eyes, but she saw the sheen that suddenly developed there. Revelation shot through her. “You loved him, didn’t you?”

  After a few seconds’ hesitation, her mother nodded. “Fiercely. I was stunned that he could just walk away from me…and you. It took me years to get over him.” She looked down at her hands and smoothed her thumb over her bare left finger. “Sometimes I think I never did.”

  Felicia’s heart squeezed for her mother’s enduring heartache, but she sensed an ulterior motive to the purposeful confession. “Mother, why are you telling me this…now?”

  “Because of Jerry Key,” Julia said, then gestured to the couch. “Isn’t that what all this is about? Isn’t that why you’re prostrate with grief?”

  Panic crowded Felicia’s chest—had her mother heard something through her friends in the DA’s office? Is that why she was being so nice, because she knew her daughter was in big trouble? “What do you mean?”

  “I read the papers, I know that Jerry is gone, and under what circumstances.” She gave Felicia a sad little smile. “I know you were crazy about the man, honey, even after he left.”

  “I broke it off,” Felicia insisted.

  Julia angled her head. “You couldn’t have…you loved him too much. That’s why you’re hurting, isn’t it?”

  Tears filled Felicia’s eyes. “I don’t feel like talking about this right now.”

  “No…you’re right,” Julia said matter-of-factly, then reclined the chair she sat in. “You need to get some rest. I’ll sleep here tonight.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Felicia said.

  Julia dismissed her with a motherly wave…an actual motherly wave. “When is the funeral, sweetheart?”

  Felicia exhaled slowly. “There’s a memorial service tomorrow morning.”

  “Do you want me to go with you?”

  It was a very generous offer, but Felicia was going to have to ease into receiving emotional support from her mother. With the guilt of the photo of Jerry yoked on her shoulders, she didn’t feel as if she deserved it. “Thank you, but I need to be alone when I say good-bye.”

  Julia nodded. “I understand. How about we have dinner tomorrow night and you let me make up for Braddock’s?”

  “That would be nice, but…can we go somewhere else?”

  “How about Carlinda’s?”

  Felicia smiled. “Perfect.” She settled back on her pillow, immensely grateful for the layer of ease that her mother had spread over the ugliness of Jerry’s death. Felicia glanced at her mother, and her heart swelled with love. Julia wasn’t going to pass judgment on Felicia’s feelings for Jerry…she understood what her daughter was going through.

  With the possible exception of withholding information about a serious crime.

  But Felicia marveled that she and Julia were sitting quietly in the same room, behaving just like any other mother and daughter might. “You can turn on the lamp by your chair, Mom, if you want to read. It won’t bother me.”

  Julia did, then picked up the blue folder that Felicia had left on the side table. “What’s this?”

  “New material from one of my authors. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but I’m hoping it’s good.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “Man,” Felicia said, pushing thoughts of sex with Phil to the farthest-flung areas of her mind. While she had been romping with an author, Jerry might have been lingering…drawing his last breath. She hadn’t slept in her bed since it had happened.

  “Looks like he put some blood, sweat, and tears into it.”

  Felicia turned her head on the pillow. “What do you mean?”

  Julia held up the folder and pointed to a dark discoloration the size of a thumbprint on the back. “This looks like blood to me.”

  Chapter 25

  “Miss?”

  Tallie moaned. Yes…miss, as in unmarried and unlikely to be in the near future.

  “Miss?”

  She jerked awake, arms flailing as she stared into the face of a strange man. “What?”

  The uniformed usher nodded toward the front of the theater. “The movie’s over.”

  She pivoted her head, and sure enough, the white screen was blank and the theater lights were on. She was the only person left in the entire place. Tallie jumped to her feet, fully awake now and tingling with embarrassment. “Thank you,” she said primly, and fled. She was eight dollars poorer, but as least she was a bit refreshed.

  The rain had stopped, but the January skies were still leaden and low-hanging, promising more soup to come. Full darkness was less than an hour away. Tallie picked up her pace, but during the walk back to her apartment, Ron was weighing heavy on her mind—probably because she had subconsciously absorbed the military element in the thriller she’d just slept through.

  What had happened to him? What kind of trouble was he in? Had he suffered a mental breakdown? Was he connected to Jerry Key’s murder? If so, what had caused him to snap? And where was he now?

  The questions kept swirling, and she replayed in excruciating detail the last conversation she’d had with him in his office, h
is preoccupation, his nervousness. On some level, she was disappointed that he hadn’t come to her for help; she had always thought that she was Ron’s favorite underling, that they shared a respectful, if not friendly, bond. She thought that he trusted her. On an even more fundamental level, she simply couldn’t get her mind around the idea that Ron would do something so terrible, but Felicia insisted there was another part of Ron that he kept hidden from everyone else.

  For that matter, she thought as she climbed the stairs to her apartment, didn’t everyone have a side of their personality that they kept hidden from everyone else? She did…her random slovenliness, her preoccupation with a sleazy reality television show, a shoebox of sex toys under her bed.

  That provocative recollection still lingered in her mind when she reached the landing and looked up to see Keith Wages with his back leaning against her door. She blinked. “What are you doing here?”

  He was out of uniform, dressed in jeans and a rugged coat, wearing his Michigan State hat and an expression of concern on his handsome face. “Tallie, I need to talk to you.”

  Panic flooded her limbs. “What’s wrong?”

  He nodded toward the door. “It probably would be better if we went inside.”

  She fumbled with the keys and finally managed to unlock the dead bolts. She swung open the door, and he followed her inside. Taking off her coat, she draped it over the back of a chair, then turned, her heart pounding against her breastbone. “What’s this all about?”

  He took off his hat and folded it idly in his hands. “I’ve been looking into some things, following a few hunches.”

  She crossed her arms and hugged herself. He knows.

  He unfolded the hat and folded it again. “I think you’re in trouble.”

  Tallie inhaled sharply, and words stuck in her throat. I’m sorry. I’m innocent. Don’t tell my mom.

  “But before I can help you, you’re going to have to confide in me. Just remember that even though I’m not in uniform, I still have a duty to report crimes that I’m made aware of.”

  We didn’t mean it. Something went wrong. I need an attorney.

  “But if you’re involved in something illegal, I’ll try to help you.” He winced. “Is it drugs?”

  Tallie squinted. “Hm?”

  “This is touchy because our mothers know each other, but I’m not going to judge you.”

  She shook her head, utterly confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “The guy in the coffeehouse, Rick Shavel—you said you didn’t know him.”

  “Right,” she said, nodding. “Although it’s weird—I saw him yesterday.”

  His shoulders stiffened. “Where?”

  “I was walking to the train and I stopped suddenly, and he bumped into me from behind.”

  “He was following you?”

  She frowned. “Why would he be following me? You said he lived in the neighborhood, so I just assumed he was going somewhere like me. He kept walking.”

  “You’re positive you’ve never met this guy?”

  “Yes. Keith, what’s going on?”

  “The other day at the coffeehouse—I don’t believe he was there to rob the place.” He pressed his lips together. “I think he was there to shoot you.”

  She gaped, then laughed in incredulity. “That’s crazy. Why would a stranger want to shoot me?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me,” Keith said, not laughing.

  Tallie sobered. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Dead serious. And there’s more.”

  She reached behind her until her fingers touched the back of the chair at the table. “I have to sit down.”

  He helped her with the chair, then took the other one for himself. “Later that same day you were jogging and that car almost hit you.”

  “I remember.”

  “I don’t think it was an accident.”

  Her eyes went wide. “You think the driver was trying to run me down?”

  “If I remember correctly, the car was moving slowly and hugging the curb. Then when you stepped out into the crosswalk, it sped up. At the time, I thought perhaps the driver mistook the gas for the brake, but now I’m not so sure.”

  A shiver crawled over her arms. “But why would someone try to run me down?”

  “I don’t know. Can you remember anything about the driver?”

  “It was a man, I think, but I was too busy looking at the grill of the car bearing down on me.” Then Tallie scoffed and shook her head. “No, this is preposterous. Keith, look—I barely know you, but you seem like the kind of guy who…” She trailed off, hesitant to say what was on her mind.

  His dark eyebrows came together. “What kind of guy am I?”

  Here was her chance to establish proper distance between them. “The kind of guy who enjoys…saving people.”

  He pursed his mouth, nodding slowly. “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “No. But in this case, I think you’re trying to make connections that just aren’t there.” She laughed. “Trust me, my life isn’t interesting enough for anyone to bother trying to kill me.”

  He stared at her a minute, then pulled his hand over his mouth. “Let me get this straight—you think I’m making something out of nothing so I can come out looking like a hero?”

  She swallowed. “I didn’t say that.”

  “But that’s what you think?”

  “I think it’s ridiculous to think that someone would want to kill me!”

  He nodded, his mouth tight. “Okay, well, there is one more thing.”

  Her heartbeat ratcheted up. “What?”

  “The M.E. report is back on the guy who died in your HV/AC shaft.”

  “And?”

  “Cause of death was a heart attack. Time of death was sometime Monday morning.”

  She lifted her hands. “Okay, that’s pretty terrible. But what does that have to do—”

  “The guy had tools and equipment on him to install telephone bugging devices.”

  She frowned. “He was bugging the building?”

  “Probably an individual apartment,” Keith said. “And since he was on his way back out when he had the heart attack, he probably had finished his job.”

  Tallie laughed. “Sounds like a domestic issue to me—someone snooping on their ex.”

  “That’s usually the case,” he agreed. “So at first I didn’t think anything about it.”

  She waited, breathing harder.

  “And then I found out the man’s name was also Shavel—he’s a brother to the guy who shot up the coffeehouse, who, I discovered, has a pretty powerful attorney for a common street thug. The guy was out of jail practically before the police report was filed.”

  Her heart thrashed. “Coincidence?”

  “I don’t think so.” He got up and walked over to her portable phone, where it sat in its base unit. He popped off the receiver cover and looked inside, then he reached in with thumb and forefinger and withdrew a disk about the size of a quarter, holding it by the sides. “Bingo.”

  The blood drained from Tallie’s face as her mind reeled with questions—who the hell would bug her phone? And worse…how many incriminating conversations had been overheard since Monday?

  She stared at the tiny device in Keith’s hand. This couldn’t be happening. She was the daughter of Merrilyn and Bernard Blankenship of Circleville, Ohio. Until this week the only experience she’d had with serious crime was in the books she edited.

  He wrapped the bug in a paper towel and put it in his pocket. “Do you have any other phone units in the apartment?”

  She shook her head.

  He walked back to where she sat at the table. “So…do you have any idea why someone would want to put a tap on your phone?”

  She shook her head again, speechless. “Can’t…can’t you tell anything from the bug?”

  “I’ll have it dusted for prints, but they’ll probably match up to our dead guy. He’s a middleman, I’m almost certain. A
nd this model looks fairly generic.” Keith scratched his head. “Well, let’s start with the obvious—do you have a boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  His mouth quirked slightly. “How about a former boyfriend who might do something like this?”

  “No.”

  “Someone you went out with only once or someone you met that gave you the creeps?” He smiled. “Present company excluded.”

  She appreciated his attempt at humor but made a painful admission. “Meeting you for coffee Wednesday was the closest thing I’d had to a date in months.”

  He pursed his mouth but made no comment. “Okay, have you been involved in a court case lately?”

  “No.”

  “Dispute with a neighbor?”

  “No.”

  “A crime of some sort?”

  She touched her temples—a phone tap installed on Monday couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the Jerry Key incident on Thursday…they hadn’t even planned it until Thursday after work. What the heck was going on?

  “Tallie?”

  She looked up to find Keith studying her, questions in his eyes.

  “I was mugged last summer…and there was the incident in the coffeehouse Wednesday with you.”

  He nodded slowly, but he still had that suspicion in his eyes.

  Tallie looked away. “That’s all.”

  “Okay,” he said. “How about work? Any issues there?”

  “Nothing that would warrant a wiretap.” Then she frowned. “Wait—do you think this could have anything to do with Ron’s disappearance?”

  “Anything is possible. What is your relationship to him?”

  “He’s my boss.”

  “Were you…romantically involved?”

  She glanced up.

  He looked sheepish. “Your mother might have mentioned to my mother that you had a crush on your boss.”

  She pursed her mouth. “Ron is gay.”

  One dark eyebrow shot up. “Got it. Did he share details with you about his personal life?”

  “No.”

  “When did you see him last?”

  “Monday he asked me to his office to tell me he was going to be away from the office for a while. He didn’t explain why except he said no when I asked if it had something to do with the Reserves. I told Detectives Riley and McKinley about the phone call I overheard when I left his office.” She repeated the conversation and the fact that she didn’t know who he’d been talking to.