by A W Hartoin
“Nothing. Whattayawhat?”
“You know what I want!”
“Tomorrow.”
He hung up again.
What is happening?
“Mom! Don’t make me come up there!” I yelled up the stairs.
“Come up here!”
Mom was in my room, standing in front of a corkboard. “Who are the Sorkines?”
I countered with, “Why’d you tell Dad not to investigate Agatha and Daniel’s murders?”
“Because there was no point. We knew that The Klinefeld Group did it and we don’t know what they wanted.”
“Why not stop them?”
“It was better left alone. They were after the Bleds after the war for a while, but they stopped. Then they popped back up with the crash and went away again. I thought they’d stay away. No reason to poke the bear.”
“The bear has been poked.”
Mom put her finger on the Sorkines’ notecard. “Who are they?”
I explained that Chuck and I had discovered the Sorkines’ abandoned apartment in Paris while following up on another lead. They left about the time that our ancestors, Amelie and Paul, met Stella and Nicky. The Bleds had been paying the bills on the apartment ever since and Big Steve knew about it.
“Big Steve’s involved?”
I filled her in about his mysterious mother. “There’s a lot of pieces to this.”
Mom gazed at the corkboards and gave me a lop-sided smile. “Indeed there are. So it’s high time we do something.”
“We?”
“You. Me. Us.”
“Mom, you just had a stroke,” I said.
“I’m well aware.”
“You’re supposed to be resting and doing your therapy.”
“I am. I will.”
“Not enough.”
“I’ll decide what’s enough. I need something. I’m a good researcher. The best Big Steve ever had. Your father won’t let me near the business. I was in it up to my eyeballs before it happened. I need something to think about other than what’s happened to me and whether or not I’m currently drooling.”
“Oh, Mom.”
She started crying. Not the ugly cry, a soft weeping. She didn’t cry much and it took me by surprise. “He’s so upset and he won’t leave me alone and it’s all ruined.”
“It’s not ruined.”
“Yes, it is. I was independent all those years. I hated it, but I loved it, too.” She gazed at me with big, watery green eyes. “We were okay, weren’t we?”
“Sure.”
“Now I want to work on this project.”
“What about Dad?”
Mom had had it. It’d been about him for twenty-seven years and now he’d made her stroke about him, too.
“He’s not doing it on purpose,” I said.
“I know, but I want something that he’s not going to take over,” said Mom.
“I get that, but you don’t lie to Dad.”
“But he lied to me.”
“Huh?”
“‘I have to work.’ ‘Nobody else is available.’ ‘I’ll be back for dinner.’ ‘I didn’t know it was Christmas.’”
“I think he really didn’t know.”
Mom went squinty.
“I guess he should’ve known.”
“Everyone else did,” she said.
“But Dad’s not like everyone else.”
“He chose it, Mercy. And now I’m choosing this. What needs to be done? What are we working on?”
I crossed my arms and leaned on the wall.
She gave me the stink eye. “What are you up to?”
“I’ll give you a job, if you help me figure out what to do about Dad.”
“I don’t want to.”
“He has to get back on track,” I said. “For the business if nothing else.”
“Oh, I’ll get him back on track with a baseball bat.”
“No hitting.”
“Fine, but I reserve the right to smack.”
“Deal.”
I gave Mom Agatha and Daniel’s deaths to work on. She could root around and pump Nana and Pop Pop for information. Nobody had asked them questions since Mom was a teenager and, come to think of it, she was probably the one to ask. She actually knew Agatha and Daniel.
“Promise that you’ll have your naps.”
“I’m sick of napping like an infant. It’s ridiculous and I’m done with it,” Mom said with her eyes half closed.
“You can barely stay awake now.”
“I’m perfectly lucid.”
“And exhausted.”
Mom wrinkled her nose in the way that I did or at least the way Chuck said I did. He claimed it was adorable. I wasn’t so sure. “I’ll need time away from your father.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll arrange that?”
Why is this my life?
“I will if you do what I say,” I said.
“What do you say?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll think of something.”
Mom sat back and looked at Stella’s book. “We’re going to figure it out.”
“I hope so.”
“I know so.” She pointed at my pocket. “Now answer your phone before Dad has his own stroke.”
“Get in bed and I will.”
Mom complied, to my surprise, and asked, “Are we working on the case?”
“We are. Be right back.” I went back down the stairs to find Millicent’s laptop in the library tucked away in the desk. Then I talked Dad off the ledge saying that I needed girl time with Mom, shamelessly hinting that I might be having my period and feelings, the two things that he was guaranteed to avoid. He agreed to stay home under threat that I might decide to include him in our discussion and I promised to bring Mom home at ten o’clock like she was a twelve-year-old girl who couldn’t be trusted.
“So what did he say?” asked Mom, her arms crossed and a frown deeply etched in her forehead.
“Have fun.”
“That doesn’t sound like your father, not anymore.”
“We’re having girl time,” I said.
She smiled. “You’re a bad daughter.”
“You taught me well,” I said before calling Chuck. I left a message, saying where I was and that he should call before he came over since I didn’t know how long girl time was going to take.
When I hung up, Mom pulled Stella’s book onto her lap. “What’s first?”
“Pizza.” I called Imo’s and ordered a ridiculous amount of food. Mom protested that she couldn’t really eat pizza, but I was willing to bet she could. Dad’s constant fussing had made her more fearful than she realized and I ordered Mom’s nemesis, salad, for good measure.
“I haven’t had toasted ravioli in forever,” she said. “They might be hard for me.”
“It’s only me here to see,” I said. “Now, let’s take a look at this.”
I cuddled into bed next to Mom and opened the laptop, googling Catherine Cabot and explaining the situation. Mom wasn’t scandalized as I thought she might be.
“People do things they abhor in others all the time,” she said. “What other secrets does she have?”
“Uncle Morty’s working on it,” I said.
Mom slid the laptop over to her lap and began typing, doing pretty well with her left hand. “Call him. He should be done. This is easy for him.”
It took four tries to get Uncle Morty to pick up, which wasn’t like him when he was going on a case.
“Yeah,” he said. “I heard about that.”
“What?” I asked.
“Sure. I can do that, but I think they’re fine.”
“Who? What are we talking about?” I asked.
“Tommy will get back to it. Give him time,” said Uncle Morty.
“I’m not calling about Dad.”
Mom raised an eyebrow at me and I shrugged.
“Carolina’s good. Don’t be fussing about them.”
“I don’t know
what you’re talking about,” I said. “Do you at least have Catherine’s profile?”
“Stop your bellyaching. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“I don’t even like their coffee,” he said.
“What in the hell?” I asked.
“Freaking fine. Nine at Ode de Caffeine. Yeah whatever ya pain in my ass.” He hung up on me and I stared at the phone.
I’m so confused.
“You’re meeting Morty at Ode de Caffeine tomorrow?” asked Mom.
“No. I have to work,” I said.
“I don’t think so. Clinic’s closed. It was on the news. The state health board is worried about the files being corrupted. That truck ran over the computer.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s not our only computer.”
“Don’t get mad at me. Call your boss.”
I called Shawna and we were shutdown. Just for Friday. Shawna had to go in and prove we hadn’t lost anything. She claimed there wasn’t a problem and she thanked me for getting Big Steve on the case. He’d already served Beth Babcock with five countersuits and a cease and desist order for good measure. Beth was so pissed that when she got out on bail, she marched over to the local hardware store and tried to buy the makings of a firebomb. Mr. Klein, the owner, called the cops. They wouldn’t have arrested her, but she smacked one of them and was now charged with assaulting a police officer, prompting the Post-Dispatch to start a series on congenital insanity in local families. They didn’t name the Babcocks, but everyone knew who they were talking about when they said “backwoods hicks with no sense of right and wrong.” Now the Mission Hill Babcocks were threatening to sue the paper, but they’d spent everything they had on bailing Beth out twice. Not a good use of their funds, in my opinion.
“So no work, I take it,” said Mom.
“Nope. What did you find on Catherine?” I asked.
“Not a whole lot. Nice girl.”
Mom showed me all kinds of publicity shots of various charity work and Catherine’s work profile at Calabasas Accounting.
“She’s an accountant?” I asked. “Maybe that’s why she does it. Boredom?”
“Catherine’s a forensic accountant. That could be something,” said Mom.
I wrinkled my nose. “She pissed off a client and they sent nude pictures to her work as revenge? I don’t think so. They could complain or report the business to the Better Business Bureau.”
“Maybe they did,” said Mom.
“That’s a thought. I’ll ask Morty.”
We sat together, curled up in bed and waiting for Imo’s to ring the bell. I couldn’t stop looking at Catherine’s profile picture. She cleaned up well when she made an effort for the right reasons. Her face was open and guileless. I could almost forget those other pictures. Almost. The more I looked the more I got the impression there was a lot going on behind those blue eyes. There had to be and I was going to find out what.
Catherine who have you pissed off?
Chapter Six
I ROLLED OUT of bed at eight o’clock on Friday morning, waking up naturally without the benefit of an alarm clock or Alexa blaring salsa or Chuck calling to say where the heck he was last night. I took a quick shower without washing my hair. The repeated washing after my dip in the ditch had angered it and I was beginning to look like I had a blond Brillo pad on my head. I found another of Chuck’s many sweatshirts and threw on my favorite comfy jeans.
In the living room, Skanky gave me the cold shoulder. He’d made a break for it when I came home and I’d caught him by the tail and now he was punishing me. I didn’t care as long as he didn’t eat anything bizarre and barf all over.
Li Shou was in his cage where I’d put him. He was so motionless I got worried and went over to give him a poke in case he’d died and just hadn’t fallen off his perch yet. Nope. The bird blinked. I fed him and considered calling Skanky’s vet to see if she knew anything about silent green parrots.
I didn’t because I didn’t have time and the vet liked to talk. I checked my messages in case I’d missed Chuck’s call. Not a single call from him. So I made a coffee with my Keurig, one of the many coffeemakers that Chuck gave me, in an attempt to fortify myself for the meeting with Uncle Morty. Chuck would’ve been disappointed that I didn’t use the Rocket machine he got me. It did make incredible lattes, but it had to heat up and had all kinds of fiddly knobs. I couldn’t be bothered most of the time, but I told him I used it daily. I was starting to wonder why I was so worried about sparing his feelings if he couldn’t remember I existed.
Then the coffee hit my system and I breathed. It was fine. Chuck caught a new murder. That’s okay. Can’t get mad about that. Then I remembered Uncle Morty and needed a second cup.
You can do it. He won’t yell that much.
Someone knocked on my door and all the good feelings left, leaving no scraps behind. That wasn’t Chuck’s I-screwed-up knock. I couldn’t think of a visitor I wanted and if that was Uncle Morty in a rage, I would lose it.
I opened the door and there stood a small weirdo instead of the large one I feared. Aaron, my partner, stood in the doorway, holding a small brown bag and bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. He was going to feed me whether I liked it or not. And I didn’t like it. Aaron looked bad, even for him, which is saying something. My tubby little partner had a coating of some kind of grey dust on him, chunks of something in his hair, and a bloody knee that had dripped and dried down into his beat-up Nikes, making a crust that was flaking off and fluttering to the floor.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“Cooking.”
“What the crap? Is cooking now a contact sport?” I asked, stepping back. “Come in. I’ll clean up that leg.”
He didn’t move and his signature scent of hotdogs rolled into my apartment, accompanied bizarrely by chocolate and pastrami. It was not a good combo.
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting.”
“For me?”
No answer. Typical.
“Well?”
Nothing.
Why is everyone I know weird?
“Aaron, I have to meet Uncle Morty. Do you want to come?” I didn’t usually ask if Aaron was coming because he usually just did, but I had to say something eventually. The silence was getting to me.
“I bought a bakery,” he said finally.
“Where?”
“Here.”
In the world of Aaron, here could mean practically anything. St. Louis, the United States, my apartment. “Okay. Congratulations.”
“Want to come?” he asked.
“To the bakery?”
Nothing.
What are we doing?
I rubbed my forehead and opened up a scratch. Oh, the stinging. “Aaron, I’m tired and I’m on a case for Big Steve. Please tell me what you want me to do.”
“Come to the bakery.”
“Where is it?”
“Next to Kronos.”
“Isn’t that a bike shop?”
Nothing.
“I’ll come to the bakery later. Okay?”
He held up a brown paper bag. “Donut.”
Bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet again, he gave me the little bag. Aaron cared what I thought about his food. He cared a lot. Why remained a mystery.
I didn’t have to open the bag to know that it contained a piece of heaven inside. The smell that came out was nothing short of orgasmic. “Is that lemon? No, not lemon.”
“Eat.”
I opened the bag and found a small donut, square with a round hole. “It’s so cute.”
Aaron stared off to my left, still bobbing up and down, so I ate. It was a blood orange and bitter chocolate donut, so good it took the wind out of me.
“Aaron, that’s amazing. I mean, it’s practically criminal it’s so good.”
“It’s yours.”
“That’s a good thing since I just ate it.”
More stari
ng to the left.
“Alright then. I’m going.” I grabbed my purse, made sure Skanky was ignoring me on the sofa, and walked out the door. Aaron trotted along behind me.
“I take it you’re coming?” I said, jogging down the stairs.
“We’re partners,” he said.
“Don’t you have a bakery to build?”
Aaron didn’t answer my question. He followed me to Ode de Caffeine, yakking about putting hot dogs in donuts. I had a bad feeling about that bakery.
We found Uncle Morty in the back of Ode de Caffeine. The place was packed with young professionals, moms and dads with strollers, and groups having meetings, but there was an empty area around Morty. Such was the power of the grump.
He did look worse than usual. Nikki kept him tidy, but he’d somehow escaped her, wearing one of his twenty-year-old jogging getups. Morty never jogged in his life, but he loved those things with their expanding waists and elastic cuffs. That day it wasn’t the right choice. It was a fine October morning and about fifty degrees. I wore a bulky sweater that Mom said made me look dumpy. Sometimes you have to wear what your mother says not to. It’s a chemical thing and I was warm and cozy in my sweater, certainly not hot in any sense of the word. Uncle Morty was flushed and sweating. He had his laptop open and several files on the table, but he didn’t have his usual self-satisfied aura around him.
“Are you alright?” I asked, sitting down across from him.
He belched and it smelled like Pepto-Bismol. Considering his diet, it could’ve been worse. Onion and sausage pizza, for instance. “Shut up. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Stop looking at me.”
“Gladly,” I said. “I’ll leave and you can piss up a rope as Dad would say.”
“Pipe down. I got Catherine’s profile. You want it?”
Aaron trotted up and gave me a latte before going in the back, presumably to take over and fix their food. The owners, Johnny and Jim, knew him so they probably wouldn’t throw a fit.
“Lay it on me,” I said.
Uncle Morty’s profile was better than anything Mom and I came up with. Catherine was the only child of Cabot III. She stood to inherit an estate of 2.5 million when he died and she had a trust fund that she’d had access to since she turned twenty-five. The trust came from her mother, Dr. Alice Frommer Cabot, an endocrinologist who died of leukemia when Catherine was thirteen. Catherine rarely touched the trust, withdrawing on it only to make donations to various charities that included Cops for Kids and the stroke fundraiser.