Confessions of a Red Herring

by Dana Dratch

  “So if I’m such a judgmental jerk, why didn’t you just go to a hotel?”

  “I damn well would have if I’d had the cash.”

  “What about the money from the sale of the farm?”

  “We were up to our eyeballs in debt. Most of it went to some very serious people who were threatening some very serious things if we didn’t cough it up pronto.”

  “The mob?”

  “The IRS. Turned out Brandon had been using our tax payments for pot. By the time I found out, we were so far in the hole, the only way out was to sell everything.”

  “Oh jeez. I’m sorry.”

  He looked at the floor and shook his head. “It’s OK.”

  “So you’re totally broke?”

  “Just temporarily. The buyer is paying us in three installments. Taxes and my stopover in Vegas wiped out most of the first one. But I’ll get to keep some of the second, and most of the third.”

  “You were broke, and you went to Vegas?”

  “I had a little money, and I needed a lot of money. Seemed like a plan.”

  “So who paid for the groceries?”

  “Gabby. Like I said, she’s doing really well with her store.”

  Damn. Was there some sort of law about profiting from the proceeds of a crime? If I ate Mint Milanos bought with ill-gotten gains, would that make me an accessory?

  “The buyer couldn’t pay you all at once?” I asked.

  “Didn’t have the money. But they were the ones who offered the most. And they were willing to meet all of my conditions.”

  “Conditions?”

  “Not to kill the emus. Or sell them for oil or meat.”

  “Not to be mean, but what else are emus good for?” I asked.

  “Guano.”

  “What?”

  “Shit. Scat. Excrement. Feces. They drop a ton of it. And thanks to Brandon-the-Burnout, I discovered the stuff’s worth its weight in gold as fertilizer.”

  “Really?”

  “In the middle of the Arizona desert, Brandon had a green space that would make an Iowa farmer weep,” Nick said. “Unfortunately, he was using it to grow pot. Apparently, when he finally ran out of money to buy the stuff, he decided to raise his own.”

  Three cheers for American ingenuity. And they say this country isn’t producing anything anymore.

  “Why emu dung?”

  “Hey, you use what you got. When I discovered his garden, I realized two things. One, I had to sell the ranch. And two, there was definitely a way out of the mess I was in.”

  “I can appreciate that.”

  “Thought you might. Anyway, I destroyed the pot and planted some, um, more pedestrian crops. And when they started to come in, I contacted the folks at the Arizona State University. They’re turning the place into a green research station. Sort of an incubator for bio-friendly farming techniques. And they’re studying the value of emu dung as a soil additive.”

  “What about Brandon?”

  “Fell in love with a teaching assistant from the university and enrolled. I don’t think it’s going to last, but . . .”

  “But you and Gabby aren’t really married?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then congratulations on your upcoming nuptials.”

  “Thank you!”

  “Don’t thank me yet. Baba’s here now, so you’re sleeping on the couch.”

  * * *

  We trudged back and forth unloading groceries from Nick’s car like a line of carpenter ants. During one trip, I detoured to my coffee-can bank just long enough to grab a wad of bills.

  “So how much do I owe you?” I asked Gabby, as she hoisted two bags from the car.

  “Sugar, save your money.”

  “No, really. That’s the deal I had with Nick. I was supposed to go to the farmers’ market yesterday, and I never made it.”

  “It was $336,” Nick said.

  I peeled off seventeen twenties and proffered them to Gabby.

  “Sugar, your money’s no good here.”

  I turned to Nick. He took it and—in one smooth motion—slipped it into Gabby’s jeans pocket, grabbed the two grocery bags from her arms, and leaned in for a lingering kiss. Then he turned and started for the house, leaving Gabby grinning and shaking her head.

  I decided to strike while the iron was hot. So to speak.

  “Look,” I started. “Baba’s being here changes things a little. The boxes—the deliveries for the store? I can’t have that stuff coming to the house anymore. I mean, you can get a post office box or a mail drop. But not the house directly.

  “Sugar, I’ve got to make a living.”

  “I know. Believe me, I understand that. And I’m grateful for the money you guys are kicking in. But I’ve got to keep a roof over all our heads. And, as you witnessed last night, I’m under a lot of scrutiny. Legal scrutiny. Plus, someone is still trying to pin a murder on me. And the mail keeps getting misdelivered. I mean, it’s one thing if it’s just a couple of bills and some bulk mail coupons. But it’s a lot more serious if your business stuff gets hijacked.”

  “OK, sugar, that makes sense.”

  Well, what do you know? Being framed for murder actually has an upside.

  * * *

  By the time we unloaded the last of the groceries, Baba had mysteriously absented herself to my bedroom. After her odd reaction to Gabby, I wanted to give her a little time.

  “Hey, what’s this?” Nick said, pointing to the basket on the counter.

  “Scones. A present from the bed-and-breakfast guy across the street. He baked them himself.”

  “The English stud muffin?” Gabby chimed in. “Ooooh, honey, he likes you.”

  “Nah, he’s just buttering up the neighbors. That way, when his guests park all up and down the block and trample the grass, we won’t call the cops.”

  “After last night, you should be giving him scones,” Nick said. “Your news trucks were blocking the whole street.”

  “Hey, those were not ‘my’ news trucks. Just like it’s not ‘my’ gopher. But those are my scones. Sir Ian’s chauffeur said so.”

  “Sir Ian?” Nick asked.

  “Chauffeur?” Gabby gasped.

  “Let’s try these suckers,” Nick said, pulling off the cellophane. He offered the basket to each of us, then grabbed a scone for himself.

  Lucy circled Nick’s legs.

  “Oh, jeez!”

  “Blah!”

  “Sugar, did he say ‘scones’ or ‘stones’?”

  “OK,” I said, “so they’re a little hard. Maybe they’re better under some butter?”

  “They’d be better under six feet of dirt,” Nick said. “We gotta bury these things deep so the animals can’t get at them.”

  “Hey, maybe if we dunked them in coffee or . . . Oh crap, what is this? Does this look like a raisin? Please tell me this is a raisin.”

  “Hey, don’t give that to her!” Nick barked.

  I looked up to see Gabby innocently offering what was left of her scone to Lucy, who took a sniff and bolted.

  “Man, food so bad even a dog won’t try it,” Nick said, wiping his hands on his jeans.

  I pitched my scone into the trash. It made a hard thunk. “There’s the slogan for their brochure.”

  * * *

  Dinner was uneventful.

  The main course, something Baba concocted and poured over bread, was gray and runny, with lumps. It could have been anything. Chicken. Potatoes. Lettuce.

  We all scarfed it down and asked for seconds. Baba beamed.

  Hours later, as we each headed off to bed, I brought sheets and blankets out to Nick.

  “Schtow eta?” Baba asked, glaring at me.

  “Gabby’s staying in the guest room, so Nick’s sleeping on the couch,” I explained.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head vigorously.

  “You,” she said, pointing at Nick and gesturing toward the bedroom door Gabby had just closed. “You both in guest room.” With that, she gr
abbed the linens and marched them back to my room.

  When I came in, she was packing them into the chest that served as my linen closet.

  “Baba, you’re sure you’re going to be OK with Nick and Gabby staying in the same room?”

  “Da.”

  If she’d suddenly sprouted rocket skates and announced she was taking up professional roller derby, I couldn’t have been more surprised.

  “What about all that stuff you told me growing up? ‘He won’t buy the cow if he can get the milk for free’?”

  “Oh, Alexandra,” she said with a strained smile. “This cow we don’t want him to buy.”

  Chapter 29

  Even though I was unemployed, Monday still felt like Monday.

  The good news: I had a freelance assignment, thanks to Trip. And a kitchen full of groceries, thanks to Nick and Gabby.

  The bad news: my article was due in less than two weeks. I was no closer to discovering who killed Coleman. And I hadn’t told Baba about my night job.

  Plus, unless I wanted to keep blowing through my rainy-day mortgage fund, I had to get some money. And that meant cashing Peter’s check.

  When I walked into the kitchen, Nick was sitting at the table drinking coffee and reading the paper. He looked freshly shaved and showered. And he was, for Nick at least, fully dressed—decked out in jeans and an Arizona State Sun Devils sweatshirt. Lucy was curled at his feet, dozing.

  “How long have you been up?”

  “This is my second pot,” he said, raising his cup.

  “Good God, why?”

  “I’ve discovered a new form of birth control.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Baba in the next room.”

  “Hey, she’s fine with it. It was her idea. Besides, she sleeps like the dead.”

  If the dead could snore.

  “Doesn’t matter. She knows stuff. It’s spooky. So at this point, I might as well be sleeping in the bathtub. Ain’t gonna happen.”

  Well, what do you know?

  “Hey, by any chance, do you have a local bank account?” I ventured.

  “Not yet. I was gonna open one in the next few weeks. I’m not due to get the second installment on the ranch ’til later next month. Until then, it’s all about the Benjamins. Why do you ask?”

  I left Peter’s name out of it, but explained I had a large check I needed to cash, and gave him the short version of my now-strained relationship with the bank.

  “Why don’t you just go to a check-cashing place?”

  “I never thought of that,” I said. “Would they do it?”

  “They’d take a hefty fee, but yeah, they’d do it. It’s where you go when you don’t have an account. Brandon used them all the time.”

  “Brandon was a drug dealer.”

  “Exactly. So you know they don’t set the bar too high. Told Baba about your night job yet?”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re enjoying this?”

  “Hey, I’ve done my time in the hole. It’s your turn.”

  “I’ll tell her tonight, before I leave,” I said, pouring coffee into my favorite mug, which happened to be the size of a bongo drum.

  “I’m guessing right before you leave?” Nick said, handing me the Nesquik.

  “What are you? My conscience, Jiminy Cricket?” I popped the top on the Nesquik, dumped in three heaping spoonfuls, gave it a stir, and took a long, happy sip.

  He grinned. “Can I at least be there when you tell her?”

  * * *

  I spent the morning working on my bridal story. By noon, I realized that if I had to listen to one more bride blather on about her “perfect wedding,” “perfect day,” or “perfect dress,” I was going to go perfectly mad.

  I grabbed the phone and dialed Trip. “I need a fiancé.”

  “Admitting your problem is the first step toward recovery.”

  “There’s a bridal registry clinic Thursday evening. I have to go for the magazine story. And it’s couples only.”

  “That’s the part that makes zero sense to me,” he said. “What kind of clinic do you need? You find something you like, you zap it with a price gun and—bam!—it goes on your gift list.”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s stupid. But I’m supposed to be writing an insider’s account, so I’ve got to go and drink the Kool-Aid.”

  “Will there be actual Kool-Aid?”

  “Punch of some sort. And little sandwiches. Then they teach you how to set up a proper household with shrimp forks and silver napkin rings.”

  “Sounds like one of Sweetie’s garden parties,” Trip said.

  “See? That’s why you’d be perfect for this.”

  “I’d have flashbacks,” he said. “I’ll never forget the time I spiked her punch with grape vodka. You haven’t seen funny until you’ve seen an entire DAR chapter skinny-dipping in a duck pond. With gloves and hats.”

  “Did she ever figure out who did it?”

  “Of course,” he said. “And the best part was, I never had to attend another garden party.”

  “So the message here is?” I asked.

  “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid. Spike the punch.”

  “Words to live by. I still need a groom.”

  “What about Lord Sir Bed-and-Breakfast?” Trip asked.

  “Let’s see, should I actually be wearing the wedding dress when I invite him? Or save that for Thursday?”

  “Too forward?” he asked.

  “Too forward.”

  “Would make a great first-date story to tell the kids.”

  “Yeah, but it pretty much guarantees they’d be someone else’s kids. What does it say about me that my only options for a fake groom are you, my brother, and a neighbor I just met?”

  “It says you definitely need to get out more,” he agreed. “Look, nobody in their right mind is going to buy me as your fiancé.”

  Trip jokes that he “came out” at birth.

  Which initially confused the hell out of his family. They’d been expecting little Chase Wentworth Cabot III, scion of the family and future Virginia gentleman farmer, to be a rough-and-tumble little boy. Which he was. But he also liked eyelet curtains, high-fashion Barbies, and the color pink. So his family did the only thing they could think of: they loved Trip for Trip.

  Consequently, despite the Southern Gothic prerequisite assortment of kooky aunts, crazy uncles, and oddball cousins, Trip is one of the most well-adjusted, down-to-earth people I’ve ever met.

  Not that he’d ever admit it.

  “I was such a shock that after the birth, my mother had her ya-ya sewn shut,” he announced during tea at my first visit to the Farm.

  I nearly dropped the ancient bone china cup I was balancing on my lap, as I tried not to choke on a cucumber sandwich.

  “Ah most cuh-tainly did naht,” drawled Trip’s mother, a gently worn, fifty-plus blonde who claimed to be forty-five, acted fifteen, and went by the improbable name of Sweetie.

  “It was a little tightening procedure.” She pronounced it pro-SEE-jah. “Strictly restorative.”

  “Restorative?” I croaked, once I’d settled the cup in my lap.

  “Ah was a young bride, and he had a head like a wah-ta-melon. Would anyone like more tea?” she added brightly.

  Was it any wonder that if I had to venture into the land of fine china, pressed linens, and silver place settings, I wanted Trip riding shotgun?

  “Take Nick,” Trip said finally. “He actually is engaged, so it’s not a total lie. Oh, and don’t forget the rock.”

  “The wrestler?”

  “The ring,” he said. “You want to run with the brides and be accepted as a member of the pack, you need a diamond. Preferably a big one.”

  “Why big?”

  “You put ten brides in a room, they’re going to start comparing engagement rings,” Trip said. “And size matters. You need to represent.”

  “I was just going to say that mine was at the jeweler’s.”

  “Lame
. Any chance Gabby will loan you her boulder?”

  “The engagement’s kind of a touchy subject around here,” I said. “I don’t want to ask. Besides, she never goes anywhere without it. Not even the shower.”

  “See? If you’re going to be a bride, you need a ring,” Trip said. “What about Annie?”

  As anyone who reads People knows, my sister’s been engaged. Five times. And each ring was bigger than the last.

  When she invariably broke it off, her exes always insisted that she keep the bling. My theory: each of the poor slobs was hoping she’d change her mind and take him back. Which just proved how little they understood my sister.

  “I’ll ask the next time she calls,” I promised.

  “Failing that, I might be able to borrow something from Sweetie that could pass for an engagement ring.”

  “Failing that, I can hit the costume jewelry counter at Penney’s,” I said.

  “Tacky, tacky, tacky,” Trip chided. “A fake fiancé is one thing. But a fake rock? You’ll never make pack leader with that attitude.”

  * * *

  Nick and Gabby were off at some mall in Towson. More “reconnaissance.”

  I grabbed a quick lunch with Baba. I made us each a sandwich, and she heated up some gray soup that tasted suspiciously like an even waterier version of last night’s main course.

  After lunch, I decided to do a little reconnaissance of my own. I’d found the Starbucks where Piper’s wife was working and figured this might be a good time for a latte break.

  I ducked into the kitchen to tell Baba I was on my way out, just in time to catch her ladling several cups of warm soup over Lucy’s kibble. The pup was vibrating with excitement.

  Baba shrugged. “Get rid of leftovers,” she said.

  Chapter 30

  Way out in the Virginia ’burbs, the Starbucks took up one end of a strip mall that included a pizza place, a Thai restaurant, a nail salon, and a karate studio. A drive-through cleaner occupied the other corner.

  I cruised through the parking lot, curious whether I’d be able to spot which was Ellen Piper’s car.

  My pick: a blue Corolla so old that the paint was fading in patches. Two worn bumper stickers were plastered to the back fender: “Lafayette Elementary School PTA Boosters” and “The American Lung Association: It’s a matter of life and breath.”