“Bone cancer.”
“No shit? Damn.” He scratched RJ’s ears and fondled the baggage tag, a miniature American Express Card, hanging on my dog’s neck. “Maybe he can buy me a hot dog later. Then, if he wants to get in my car again, it’s all right. Long as he doesn’t fart.”
Jan and I giggled, then, as the cop left, she grabbed my arm and pointed down the street. “Gee, Hetta, look who’s coming.”
Lars and his brother, Robert “Jenks” Jenkins—USN Ret—were sauntering down the street towards us.
“Oh, great,” I growled. “Can’t we act like we don’t see them?”
Jan looked guilty.
“Fess up. You invited them, didn’t you? You told them we’d be here,” I accused.
“Busted. Guilty as charged. I like Lars. As a matter of fact, I’m going out to dinner with him next week.”
“Goody gumballs for you. I’m in no mood for that Bob. He hates me.”
“Hate is a strong word, Hetta. Lars says it’s more like, uh …” She stopped, wishing back her words. But it was too late.
“Like what?” I pounced. “What did that Bob person say about me?”
Jan looked uncertain. “You know, calling him ‘that Bob person’ is very hostile.”
“Okay, okay. Tell me what Bob said. I promise not to have my feelings hurt. What’d he say?”
She sighed. “Just that you were flighty.”
“Flighty?” I barked. “Flighty?” I repeated, not believing my ears. “I have been called unbalanced, bossy, loud, overbearing, driven, caustic, funny, chubby, short, and an old maid, but never flighty. What does that mean? And where does he get off making judgments about me? We only met twice. Okay, so one of those times I hit his boat and called him a retard. Flighty,” I scoffed, took a large gulp of wine, and glared at the approaching men.
“Oh, Lord, what have I done? Please, please, Hetta, don’t say anything. I really like Lars and if he knows I told you what he said, he might....Oh, hi there, Lars, Jenks.”
“Got room for us?” Lars asked, leaning through the window.
Jan looked nervously in my direction.
Taking another swig of wine I nodded. “Sure. Welcome to my nest.” Jan widened her eyes in warning. I shrugged and said, “What?”
Lars and that brother of his went through the front entrance, then worked their way through the standing room only crowd to our table.
And I was good. I minded my P’s and Q’s, listening to the brothers tell sailing tales and stories of their childhood in Brooklyn. I didn’t even call them Yankees.
They worked together, designing and installing security and fire protection systems. Neither, it seemed, maintained a real office. Or worked very hard.
Somehow, it was closing time and RJ, Jan, Bob and I packed ourselves into Lars’s Porsche and headed across the Bay Bridge. Why, I do not know; my car was parked in front of Jan’s apartment. Perhaps I thought I was too drunk to drive. Maybe Lars figured the only way to get rid of me, thereby getting Jan alone, was to take me home. Whatever, I was far too wasted to notice Lars was drunker than any of us.
Jenks sat in the passenger seat, Jan gingerly straddled the gearshift console, and RJ and I were crammed into a tiny space behind the seat.
“Nice car,” I said.
It was a mistake.
“Yeah, she’s a beauty. Want to see what she can do?” Lars slurred.
Suddenly sober, I yelled, “Noooo!”
But it was too late.
Lars downshifted.
Jan giggled.
Lars hit the accelerator.
15
At a little after three in the morning—an hour and several lifetimes after I had, in a moment of unbridled moronity, jumped into a Porsche with a lunatic—I was back home.
I paid the cab driver the fortune he’d demanded to allow RJ into his crappy old heap, unlocked my front door, turned off the security alarm, checked the mirror to see if my hair had turned white, and gratefully sank onto the couch. Had I the strength, I would have kissed the tile in my foyer.
My eyes burned from worn off booze, fatigue, and no small amount of residual anger. I forced my eyelids closed, hoping for relief, but instead got an instant replay of my rocky ride into Hell. And that was before I got into the taxi.
When Lars floored that Porsche, we rocketed into a guardrail and continued scraping alongside for a least a quarter of a mile. Metal tortured metal, sparking a meteor trail in our wake. When we at long last bounced off the rail, the car began a hair-raising, reverse loop waltz.
A series of explosions—blowouts—were instantly followed by even more sparks as tire rims sliced through shredded rubber, then struck the pavement. Our pyrotechnic spectacular, well worthy of a Frances Scott Key composition, thankfully brought traffic to a halt. I say thankfully, for when we ultimately skidded to a stop, we were nose to nose with the grinning grill of a humongous eighteen wheeler. The truck’s driver was not amused.
There was a moment of eerie silence before horns began blaring, headlights flashed, and the truck driver threw open his cab door and climbed out carrying what looked suspiciously like an automatic weapon.
“Lars,” Jan screeched, “do something!”
So what does her lard assed Lothario do? He jams the accelerator to the floorboard, spins the car one-eighty and takes us on a four rim, sixty mile per hour bronco ride across the bridge. I know I smelled brimstone.
Now safely back in my living room, I opened my scorched eyes and shook my head to clear the lingering screeches—metal, mine, and Jan’s. I wondered if she was all right. When RJ and I bailed at the toll plaza to flag down a cab, she chose to remain with that maniac Lars and his machine of doom. I reasoned that because Lars was insane didn’t mean he was a serial killer. Just your everyday psycho with a death wish. And as for that brother of his! I was building up a good head of steam, moving from very pissed off to furious, when RJ’s frantic barks sat me bolt upright.
“What is it, boy?” I asked. His nose was glued to a closed door leading from the living room to a downstairs bedroom, bath, laundry room, and garage that were his quarters when I was gone.
Behind the door lay a set of stairs leading down to what had, at one time in my house’s life, been a mother-in-law set up. Because my home was built on a slope, the basement level bedroom window, with its lockable dog door flap, was directly under the hot tub. When we were both away from the house, RJ’s private passageway to his outdoor pen remained locked, as did the door into the main part of the house. The very door my dog was now threatening to eat.
Although badly frightened by the frantic snarls and yelps, I forced myself to the door and sighed with relief when I saw the deadbolt engaged. The downstairs area was sealed off. We were safe as long as that door was secure. But RJ was still raising holy hell, and I trusted his instincts. Then, in a heart stopping moment, it dawned on me that I had forgotten to reset the alarm before collapsing on the couch ten minutes earlier.
Cold dropped into my stomach faster than thermometer mercury at the onset of a Texas blue norther. My arms went numb, as did my feet. If I didn’t move fast, I’d probably faint. I made it to the closet housing the alarm system panel in ten molasses-slow steps. Every window and door in the house was wired and each of the three zones had its own bank of lights. Since the system was off, they were all yellow. Nothing obvious was amiss. I was beginning to think that RJ’s night had caught up with him, right up to the second I punched in the code to reset the system. ZONE ONE—downstairs—blinked a furious red. Something, either a window or door down there, was open.
A quick look at the diagram told me it was the dog door. And since I couldn’t have set the system before leaving the house if any door or window was ajar, someone must have opened it in the last few minutes. My shaking finger hit the PANIC button as I cursed the day I had agreed to a thirty second delay to avoid false alarms.
Even though I knew the alarm on the roof would go off and wake the entire neighbor
hood in a few seconds, I ran to the kitchen and dialed 911. Not waiting for an answer, because I knew the police would trace the call, I left the phone off the hook, ran back to the foyer closet where the alarm panel was housed, and grabbed the only thing my great grandmother Stockman had left me.
No, not a family Bible. Nor a quilt. Certainly no blue chip stock certificates or the deed to downtown Austin. Nope. Grandmaw Stockman, ever practical, bequeathed me her most precious possession, her shotgun. Said with a smart mouth like mine I’d probably need it.
I hauled RJ into the closet with me just as the roof horn, all jillion decibels of it, shattered the early morning calm. I could picture lights blinking on all over the neighborhood, and many Winchesters, Smith and Wessons, Remingtons, and their automatic cousins coming out of their closets. The rising price of ammo was a major concern in my community.
Although I could barely hear anything above the siren’s din, I felt RJ’s low rumble—the one reserved for garbage men, postal employees and cops—and figured the police had arrived. I hoped the police had arrived.
Flipping off the wailing horn, I recognized the unmistakable growl of souped-up patrol car engines. With salvation at hand, I grabbed RJ by the collar, left the closet, opened the front door, and stepped out under the porch light. Several million candlepower worth of spotlights blinded us. James Cagney in The Public Enemy came to mind. I wanted my mommy.
“Freeze and drop your weapon!” a voice bellowed from the dark. RJ went bonkers, and it was all I could do to hold him. In my fatigue and fright, I had forgotten I was packing a shotgun. With a howling hound in one hand and a double-barreled over and under in the other, I probably looked, to the OPD, like a redneck survivalist.
“It’s not loaded, officer,” I wheedled. “Almost not loaded. I’m afraid to throw it down. It might go off. What do you want me to do?”
“Put on the safety, sit on the ground, then lay the gun down and scoot away from it. And hold on to that dog.”
Easier said than done, but somehow I managed with only minor skin loss. Once the gun was out of reach, I was allowed to stand. Sort of. They told me to put my hands on my head, but if I did, I would have to let go of RJ. We had a momentary standoff until a neighbor intervened.
“It’s okay, officer,” I heard my neighbor, Bunnie Adams, yell, “she’s the homeowner.”
A baby-faced cop, gun at the ready, advanced cautiously into the blaze of light. Picking up the shotgun, he handed it off to his partner, who broke open the breech. Homemade shotgun shells fell onto the ground.
“Not loaded, huh?” the cop said.
“Only rock salt and bacon rind.”
“No shit? Jesus, lady, where did you get the crazy idea to load your shotgun shells with stuff like that?”
“My great grandmother.”
* * *
“I think I might have found your problem,” a cop hollered from downstairs. There were now six of them and three patrol cars. I was in the living room being grilled by the boy cop, who seemed pissed because he couldn’t find anything to charge me or my dog with. He waved his hand in disgusted dismissal, indicating I could go down and see what his crony had found.
RJ, who had lost interest in barking and menacing men in blue, docilely followed me down the stairs to where a grinning officer stood in three inches of water.
“Looks like you need the water police,” he quipped. All the cops in the city and I gotta get one who thinks he’s Jerry Seinfeld, only black. He pointed to a busted pipe. Water shot up onto the wiring around a door. “System shorted,” was his brilliant verdict.
I turned off the water main and tromped upstairs to call a plumber who lived down the street in a home that rivaled those of the professional athletes on the same block. I could hardly wait to get his bill.
Oakland’s finest, laughing and shaking their heads, began filing out to their cars. “Hey, you guys, why don’t you each take a damned bucket of water?” I called out to what I thought was an empty house. I was startled to hear a reply.
“You want us to mop the floor as well?”
Crap, leftovers. At least that’s what I hoped. I followed the voice to find a man in a rumpled suit sitting on my couch, scratching RJ’s ears. RJ’s obvious approval notwithstanding, I was judging the distance to my shotgun when the man flashed a badge. I relaxed.
“Martinez,” he said as an introduction. “I got here a little late. Looks like things are wrapped up, so guess I’ll be going. Here’s my card if you think you have any more problems.”
I took the card, read it, and nodded. “Thanks, Detective Martinez. I guess it was a false alarm. Anyway, that’s what your guys think.”
“And you don’t?”
“I’m not sure. Could be. One thing for sure, I got a mess on my hands. How did I rate a dick?”
Martinez did a double take and grunted. “You have some fairly important neighbors who don’t like being woken up in the wee hours.”
“Ah, yes. The plumber.”
He smirked. “Nope, the NBA. Nearing the playoffs, you know.”
“Aha, so all those decibels on my roof did wake the dead? Or is it my imagination that Oakland died on the court weeks ago and refuses to lie down?”
His lips twitched. “They do have a big game tomorrow, so let’s don’t bury them quite yet.”
“Such loyalty. Well, you can tell the NBA…” the doorbell rang. “Oh, never mind. With any luck at all, that’ll be my plumber. You might stick around and arrest him when he’s done. He’s sure to commit highway robbery.”
16
My bedside alarm clock went off at eight, exactly two hours after Mr. Handy Pipe departed with the following warning: “I’ve left a sump pump working on that downstairs flooding. Check it after two hours, cuz if the pump runs dry and burns up my motor, I’ll have to charge you for a new one.” What happened to the good neighbor policy?
I needed sleep, but I needed the three hundred bucks I’d have to pay for a burned out pump more, so I dutifully set my alarm clock.
Stumbling down the stairs, I found that most of the standing water was gone. I turned off the sump, dug out my Shop-Vac, and sucked what I could from the soggy rug. The house alarm people were due later, and I was anxious to hear what they had to say, because I remained unconvinced that moisture alone was the culprit for all the havoc. After all, the police confirmed that the dog door flap was indeed unfastened, and I distinctly remembered securing it after my brunch guests left the day before. Which by now seemed like an eternity ago.
Maybe the alarm company guy would have an explanation. One of the reasons I had them zone the house when they installed the system was so I could leave the downstairs system off when I was gone for more than a few hours. That way, RJ could go in and out of a window fitted with a lockable pet flap, and into dog jail, as I called the fenced area under my hot tub.
When we were both gone, the gate from the backyard into dog jail was padlocked, and the dog flap into RJ’s bedroom was fastened shut and was wired into the main alarm system. Unless an intruder smashed out another window, the only way they could get into the main part of the house from downstairs was to jimmy the lock, open and squeeze through RJ’s doggie door, go up the stairs, and then break down, or through, a bolted door into the living room. Up until now, I had been enjoying what may have been a false sense of security.
I was positive I had hit the “whole house” setting when Jan and I left. The alarm won’t set unless all lights are green. Had the system malfunctioned, or had we a mystery visitor capable of squeezing through the four inch slats of the padlocked dog jail, then opening the pet flap? Raccoon? Maybe, there were a few around.
I had the kennel designated as dog jail specially built for a dog that could easily jump my six-foot yard fence in a single bound. RJ could go outside, into a twenty-by-twenty foot area, and not be cooped up in the house all day. If it was cold or raining, he would retreat to his bedroom inside where he had food, water, and a basket. Most of the third w
orld population would kill for such a set up.
RJ was less grateful. He much preferred to be either in the main house, lounging on my leather furniture, or even better, free to roam and terrorize. But, being the pampered, registered, licensed, and therefore, restricted, American pet he was, my dog had to settle for what the City of Oakland required. So, dog jail it was.
I crawled wearily back into bed and reset my Big Ben for another hour’s sleep before the alarm guys showed up. Ten minutes later the phone rang.
“Where are you?” Jan demanded. Aha! She was alive. But not for long, if I had anything to do with it. “I mean, I know where you are, Hetta, I want to know why. As you may recall, we’re taking our first real sail with Women On the Estuary this morning and if you hurry, we can catch some breakfast before we leave.”
Just Add Water (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 1)) Page 9
