by Dana Dratch
“How’d you like another houseguest?”
“Are you serious? I don’t even have a spare bed to offer.”
“I can sleep on the sofa,” Trip said. “No biggie.”
“What about Tom?” I asked.
“Tom would need a bigger sofa,” Trip said.
“You know what I mean.”
“Tom’s a good guy,” he said. “He’ll understand. And it’s just for a night or two.”
“Everybody says that when they show up at my door. And nobody’s left yet.”
“Despite the cramped quarters and zero-star cuisine. You could give lessons to Sir Bed-and-Breakfast.”
“Oh, you should know,” I warned. “Nick and Gabby have hit a rough patch.”
“No live sex show in front of Baba. Check.”
“No, I mean they’re barely speaking. And she’s spending a lot of time locked in the bathroom with her phone. Possibly talking business, possibly talking to her ex.”
“Hey, if I wanted family tension, bad food, and homicidal maniacs, I’d have gone home for Christmas,” Trip said.
“You did.”
“Well, there you go. I’ll fit right in. So when do we get to listen to that tape?”
“I figure as soon as we get home, and I can pop in some fresh batteries.”
“Over a big plate of cinnamon buns?” he prompted.
“After a big bowl of Baba’s stew.”
“If you ever want to get a boyfriend,” Trip said with a grin, “we’re going to have to teach you to lie.”
Chapter 44
When we finally arrived home, Trip was treated like a returning war hero. My reception was only slightly warmer than the Gravois’ parking lot.
First, Baba hugged me. Then she glared, shook her head, and toddled off to the kitchen.
All I wanted was a very long, very hot shower.
After draining my water heater and nearly a full bottle of liquid soap in the shower, I pulled on my sweats and wandered into the kitchen.
Baba had plied Trip with bowls of stew and steaming mugs of hot coffee. Nick had slipped him a few brioche rolls to make it more palatable. And followed it up with warm cinnamon rolls and cold milk. Lucy was dozing at Trip’s feet.
When I appeared, the happy chatter stopped.
Baba dished up another bowl of stew, set it in front of me with a loud “clunk,” and immediately turned back to the stove.
Gabby’s eyes went wide. I looked at Nick. He shrugged.
Trip inclined his head to Baba and nodded.
“I quit the night job,” I said loudly, to no one in particular. “Tonight was my last night.”
Baba turned and looked at me. There were tears in her eyes. I rushed over and gave her a full-body hug.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “So sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“Nichevo, nichevo,” she said, gently patting me on the back.
“Hey, sob sisters,” Nick called from behind us. “The food’s getting cold.”
“She’s got some not-so-good news, too,” Trip said.
“I’m broke?”
“Margaret,” he prompted.
I sighed. “My ex-boss’s wife, Margaret, seems to believe I was sleeping with her husband. Obviously, I wasn’t. But she’s been stealing the mail. And I’m pretty sure she was the one who attacked my car tonight.”
“The problem is she’s getting more violent,” Trip cut in. “And more personal. And she’s been by here more than once. We think she followed Alex from here to work tonight. The woman seems to be coming unhinged—which makes her dangerous.”
“This is my worst nightmare,” I said. “Because she hates me, you guys could be in danger, too.”
“Hey, if this is your way of trying to kick us out, we’re not leaving,” Nick said.
“Damn straight, sugar,” Gabby said.
Baba set her mouth in a grim, determined line.
“Then we need to stick together,” I said. “Nobody goes off anywhere alone. Until this is over, we keep to groups of twos and threes. Trip’s even agreed to stay over for a few nights, so we can have an extra pair of eyes.”
“What about the cops?” Nick asked.
“I’ve talked to them,” I said. “A couple of times. The problem is, I suspect it’s Margaret, but I can’t prove it. As far as the police are concerned, I’ve had some incidents of identity theft and an unrelated case of vandalism in a bad neighborhood twenty miles away. They won’t even concede it’s the same person.”
“So we have to go with what we know and protect ourselves,” said Trip.
Baba nodded. “Is true.”
“So, do we, like, sleep in shifts, or what?” Gabby asked.
“To start, I think we just make sure the doors and windows are always locked and travel in groups,” I said. “Trip’s sleeping on the sofa, and all the bedrooms are full, so I don’t think she’s going to risk a full-on home invasion. She’s more the type to try and take advantage of an opportunity.”
“Then we don’t give her any,” Nick said.
“So where’s that gorgeous car of yours?” Gabby asked Trip.
“Parked over at the B&B across the street,” he said. “I’m brave, but I’m not crazy.”
Chapter 45
Saturday morning my kitchen looked like the set of a zombie movie.
Grunting, bleary-eyed bodies shuffled back and forth across the kitchen to the coffeemaker.
The only ones who seemed immune to the effects of the late hours were Baba and Lucy, who both bounced up with the sun.
After we’d all drained two pots of caffeine, Trip volunteered to go out and bring back breakfast.
“Where’s Baba?” I asked Nick, when I realized I hadn’t seen her for a while.
“Out for a walk with Lucy,” he said, yawning.
“You let her go out alone?”
“She’s wearing combat boots, and she’s armed with a frying pan the size of a garbage-can lid. She might scare the crap out of your neighbors, but she’ll be fine. And what do you mean ‘let her’? Like I could stop her?”
Trip patted me on the shoulder. “It’s all right. I’ll pick them both up on my way to Burger King. We’ll be back in twenty minutes with food. Then we can listen to that recording of yours.”
“I just hope it was worth two weeks of working nights. Hang on!” I ran into my bedroom and rooted through the dirty laundry bin until I came up with an old green blanket. I gave it the sniff test. It smelled like lasagna, but Lucy would probably appreciate that.
“Here,” I said, tossing it to Trip. “So she doesn’t shred your leather seats.”
“That’s no way to talk about our grandmother,” Nick said.
Trip smelled the blanket and wrinkled his nose. “Spaghetti?”
“Lasagna.”
“Don’t even want to know.”
“Hey, it was a rainy, B-movie Sunday. A double feature. She Married a Stranger and Don’t Forget to Scream.
“Definitely two Oscar contenders,” Trip said.
“Forgive her,” Nick chimed in. “No cable, no TiVo, no satellite, no Xbox. I’m sorry, what have you got?” he said, turning to me.
“A life,” I countered.
Nick grinned over his coffee mug. “Not from where I’m sitting.”
* * *
Ninety minutes later, we were all as full as ticks. While Trip gathered up the remains of our fast-food feast, Baba prepped a batch of goulash on a back burner of the stove.
The rest of us clustered in the living room.
“What’s in goulash?” Gabby whispered, pointing toward the kitchen.
“Beets, carrots, potatoes, onions, turnips,” Nick said under his breath. “And some kind of meat.”
“It sounds healthy,” Gabby said. “And it should taste good.”
“It should, but it won’t,” Nick said. “What I can’t figure out is how everything comes out gray and slimy.”
“I think that’s the noodles,” I said.
“Apparently they kind of fall apart after they’ve been simmering for five hours.”
“Noodles!” he said, snapping his fingers. “Of course!”
“There were noodles in that stuff?” Gabby asked.
“Yeah, and I swear I tasted peanut butter in the last batch,” I said.
“You did,” Nick said. “I saw it on the counter, but I didn’t say anything.”
“Why not?” Gabby asked.
“It’s like a mob hit,” I explained. “The less you know, the better off you are.”
Trip and I migrated to the porch. It was bright and sunny. Just cool enough to wear a sweater. And I swear the air smelled like chocolate.
“I’ve got about fifteen hours on here,” I said. “Where do you want to start?”
“The beginning? Call me crazy.”
“Anyone ever mention that you editors are unnaturally wedded to routine?”
“Every day of my life,” he replied. “Usually with words of a more colorful variety.”
“That’s why you get the big bucks.”
“What I really need is a whip and a chair. Cordova and Whatley got into it again yesterday.”
“How bad was it?” I asked. I’d had a ringside seat to their last bout—touched off when one accused the other of not taking their current investigative assignment “seriously enough.”
“They’re getting better. No stitches this time. An hour later, they were off to lunch together.”
“Amazing.”
“Admit it,” Trip said, “you miss it.”
“Parts of it. And it definitely beats cleaning bathrooms. Or flacking for P.R. weasels.”
“Exactly what my college career counselor said. Word for word. Look, all I’m saying is, when all this is over, at least think about coming back.”
I sighed. “I loved the job. And the people. But the pay was lousy. When I left for C&W, I really was selling my soul. The sad thing is, I’d probably still be there if they hadn’t wanted my body to go with it. Soooo, the beginning it is . . .”
An hour later, we’d listened to the entire meeting I’d missed the day Walters and Margaret threw me out. And hadn’t learned a single thing.
I got to hear Walters telling my former co-workers that I was “the prime suspect in Everett Coleman’s murder.”
“She’s dangerous and likely desperate,” he intoned from Olympus. “She’s already tried to enter this office once illegally. If anyone sees her again, call security, then inform either myself or Margaret. We’ll contact the authorities. In the meantime, until she’s in custody, we ask that you all be careful and look out for yourselves.”
The sound from Annie’s recorder was so good, it even picked up Margaret’s snuffling in the background.
I rolled my eyes. Trip grinned.
“So exactly when did you go back there again?” he asked.
“With the cleaning crew? That night.”
“Vigilantes without the vigilance. Got to love it.”
“Give ’em credit. I was wearing a disguise. Glasses and a headscarf.”
“Clark Kent only needed glasses,” he said.
“Clark Kent wasn’t a redhead.”
We fast-forwarded over a boring meeting about a budget for a new client. And another forty-five minutes for a lunch seminar on how to pitch new services to existing clients. Yawn.
“This is crap. I wanna hear about the audit and who got Coleman’s accounts,” I whined.
“Walters probably had those discussions in his office,” Trip said. “With the door firmly closed.”
“I don’t know. One night when we were there cleaning, he was locked in the conference room. And he was still there when we left. But he was alone. So there wasn’t any conversation to activate the recorder.”
“Look, we knew this part of it was a crapshoot. Recording or no recording, you dug up all kinds of information by working that grubby job. And at this very minute, Billy Bob is tracking the wily Chaz through the hills of West Virginia.”
“Will he bring him back tied to the hood of his car?”
“He may have mentioned something about a bungee cord and a tarp, but I try not to micromanage,” Trip said. “Seriously, how does a guy named Lopez turn out to be such a total redneck?”
“You really want to know?”
“Suddenly, I get the feeling I might not. Proceed.”
“Billy Bob’s family is from Orlando,” I said. “Real name’s Lopes. They own some kind of big commercial farm. He learned Spanish growing up, from the migrant workers. And he traded the ‘s’ for a ‘z’ when he discovered there was a premium on minority journalists.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Give the man credit. He never claims to be Hispanic. He just introduces himself, and people assume. Plus he speaks Spanish like a native.”
“Sometimes I think you and I are the only ones who aren’t working some kind of scam,” Trip said. “And I’m not so sure about you.”
“You leave my family out of this.”
“Come on, we might as well hear the next installment of The Dull and the Deadly. Are you sure Coleman didn’t just drop from sheer boredom?” He pressed “play.”
“Hang on,” I said, hitting “pause.” “In the beginning, whoever started this had things under control. But lately, it’s been unraveling. Chaz is MIA, and the Feds and the state guys are sniffing around. I’m betting it’s spinning out of control.”
“Just like your life.”
“Exactly! So I say we play the tape backward.”
“And see if there’s a message from the Devil?”
“Not backward-backward,” I said. “Start at the end. Roll back twenty or thirty minutes and play that segment. And keep going that way.”
“Start at the end of the maze and work back,” he said. “I like it.”
I fiddled with the recorder, pressing one button, then another. I finally hit “play.”
There was a sound, like paper shuffling. Then a knock.
“Benjamin.” Jennifer Stiles’ voice. Weird.
“Come in.” Walters answered.
“Well, Benjamin, you certainly seem to be working hard.” Jennifer again. And there was a taunting quality to her voice that I’d heard myself on a couple of occasions. This wasn’t the angry mistress or the grieving girlfriend. This was the Jennifer who’d sashayed into C&W on her first day like she owned the place.
Trip and I exchanged glances.
“Do you need something?” Walters said. Flat. Dismissive.
“Actually, I have something for you,” she said. There was a rustling sound.
“What’s this?”
“It’s really from Everett and me. A little something you’re sure to appreciate.”
If I didn’t like her, I’d have said her tone was smug. And I didn’t like her.
Trip and I were treated to the sound of ripping paper. Walters opening his mystery gift.
“What do you get for the partner you’re pushing out of the company?” I whispered to Trip.
“I’m thinking some nice cuff links,” Trip said.
“What in God’s name is this?” Walters thundered.
“OK, whatever it is, I’m betting she won’t be getting a thank-you note,” Trip said.
“What is the meaning of this?’ Walters yelled. “A white and blue stick?”
Oh, crap.
“It’s a pregnancy test,” Jennifer said smoothly. “My pregnancy test. Everett and I are expecting a baby.”
“Everett’s dead,” Walters said.
“Damn,” I said. “I really wish I had some popcorn for this.”
“Hush!” Trip said.
“Everett’s gone,” Jennifer’s voice continued. “But luckily for all of us, a part of him will live on. Through his child. Through his fiancée. And through his business.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, Everett already has two children. And a wife.”
“Divorcing. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been a real marriag
e for years. And the children took him for granted. He was nothing but a walking checkbook to them.”
“Were they engaged?” Trip mouthed.
I shook my head. “Spin.”
More rustling. “Why on earth would you give this, this . . . thing . . . to me?” More scraping, followed by Jennifer’s light, high laughter.
“It’s all right, Benjamin. You can touch it. It’s perfectly sanitary. Unless you think my ‘girl cooties’ will contaminate you.” More laughter. “I gave it to you because this is a new beginning for this agency. A new partnership. And we’re both going to make a lot of money together.”
“My firm’s going to make a lot of money. Period. You’re going to be out of a job soon. And don’t count on getting a recommendation from me or anyone connected with this company,” he said slowly, pausing. “But I’m sure Margaret will be more than happy to help you arrange things so that you can have health insurance for your blessed event.”
I could practically see the flinty squint on his face. And I knew from experience exactly what kind of “help” Margaret was going to offer.
“Oh, Benjamin,” Jennifer said.
Uh-oh. Cue the video of sharp teeth going in for the kill.
“You’re so charmingly quaint. Do you have any idea what happens if you fire a pregnant woman? Especially one who’s carrying your late partner’s baby? Not only will there be multiple investigations and a very expensive lawsuit, but there’s all that juicy publicity. And, unlike you and poor, dear, Margaret, I’m very telegenic. Did I ever tell you that I got my degree in broadcasting?
“Everett was my fiancée, my soul mate,” she continued. “Cut down in his prime. His drunken ex is delusional, possibly even dangerous. I’m just a brave young mother, grieving for the love of my life, and working to provide for our baby. And, of course, ready, willing, and able to testify all about the inner workings of this firm, no matter how much personal pain it brings me.”
For the next thirty seconds, there was dead silence. Talk about your pregnant pauses.
“Of course, it doesn’t have to go that way,” Jennifer purred.
“Because whistle-blowers don’t get rich?” Walters said.
“Believe me, Benjamin, I’m going to get very rich, whichever hand I play. I’m simply giving you the chance to be on the winning side of the table.”