The Gossip

by Nancy Bush

Too bad.

  Twenty minutes later they were helping Gram out to Lorena’s car. Lorena had wanted to take the Caddy, but Thad had told her it wasn’t running right—he couldn’t afford it to be on the road—so they were in her Honda compact with Gram in the passenger seat and Thad folded into the back. Gram was still sniffling and it was driving both Thad and Lorena crazy.

  “We didn’t want this, either, Mom,” Lorena snapped.

  Thad asked, “How are we going to get her upstairs?”

  “The stair lift, Thad.”

  “I don’t think she can do it, Lorena.”

  Lorena glanced at Gram, then in the rearview to Thad. “We’ll do it. You’ll do it.”

  Unable to help himself, he stated firmly, “I don’t know what that weird woman was talking about. I wasn’t kissing anyone.”

  “Oh, give it up. I saw the way you looked at her, too.”

  “Who?” Thad asked, unable to help himself.

  “That Rayne girl. When she was there. The one that killed herself.”

  Lorena threw it out like it was no big deal. Like she knew it and everyone knew it and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

  Thad found himself chewing his lip, breaking open his cut again. He licked the blood and forced himself to stop gnawing.

  “And what happened to your face?” Lorena asked, looking at him in the mirror again.

  “What do you mean?” Thad went cold all over.

  “That scrape by your ear. Somebody claw you?”

  “Rayne did it,” sobbed Gram.

  Lorena glanced at her and Thad stared in horror at the back of her graying head.

  “Rayne’s dead, Mom,” Lorena said tiredly to Gram. “She killed herself.”

  Gram didn’t respond, just sniffled.

  Thad forced himself not to cover the scab on his hand protectively, the remains of the wound from Bibi’s fingernails. His blood was pounding in his ears. His mother and grandmother were dangerous to him. He felt like he was going to explode.

  As soon as they were home and Thad had managed to belt his grandmother into the stair lift and then walk up the stairs beside her and get her into the room closest to the master bedroom—Lorena’s bedroom, not the one at the end of the hall he sometimes used when he wasn’t in the lair, which was unfair and he was going to take over the master as soon as they were both dead—Thad headed to his F-150. He needed air. He needed away from them.

  He looked around the garage. He’d thrown a drop cloth over the Caddy, hiding it. Lorena hadn’t mentioned it. Didn’t care. Thad’s Ford truck was in the carport alongside the garage. When Lorena was gone, he would sell her car and move his truck inside.

  He moved forward to the workbench and the cabinets his grandfather had ordered when the house was built. His grandfather had died less than a year after he and Gram had moved in, but he’d stocked the garage with tools and miscellaneous landscaping gear. Determinedly, Thad started sorting through Grandpa’s cobwebby lawn and outdoor items. Part of them were dear old Dad’s, too. After Grandpa died, his parents and Thad had moved in with Gram, but his father had taken his life soon after. Thad snorted as he sorted through the spades and clippers and rusting cans of Raid, getting ready to load up his truck. Lorena could make a man want to kill himself, for sure.

  He gathered up a first load to put in the truck bed. He already had the knockout drops in his glove box.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Mac checked her online source of apartments on her phone and saw there was a new one open at a small complex that she knew in Laurelton, close to Highway 26. It wasn’t far from the Barn Door, which served up seventy-two-ounce steaks free to anyone who could eat one and all the fixings on the plate that came with it. The restaurant had been popular for a long time, but its clientele was diminishing in the age of a rapidly expanding vegetarian and vegan culture. Mac had been at the Barn Door once when a huge, bearded dude with a shaved head had managed to put down one of the enormous steaks. He’d gotten his meal free, but he’d looked a little glassy-eyed, as if he was having trouble keeping it down, as he’d staggered for the door and out of the restaurant.

  The price of the apartment was right so she clicked on the manager’s number and waited for them to pick up.

  She’d tried to put Taft out of her mind, but he’d been the first thing she thought of every time she woke during the course of a very restless night. She’d finally given up and had switched on her bedside lamp at four-thirty, jotted down some notes about things she needed to talk over with him, before lying back down and staring at the ceiling. She hadn’t felt this way in a long time about a man and it was troublesome. She tried to remember how she’d felt about Pete, but her ex-boyfriend was way too far in her rearview to educe any romantic response.

  Taft, on the other hand, seemed to have her nerve endings in thrall. Her autonomic system was on high alert from the most minor message from her brain, sending electric tingles from neuron to neuron, shooting through her whole system if she thought too hard about that man’s lips.

  She’d pushed thoughts of him aside with an almost physical effort with varying degrees of effect over the course of the morning. She’d checked on several apartment complexes and spent some of the morning with Stephanie, mindlessly shopping, glad her stepsister had switched her conversation to baby talk rather than anything more to do with Taft. She’d driven by Good Livin’ twice on her apartment search and had noted Keppler’s car both times. She hoped Taft would call and put her on the job in some way and didn’t want to approach Keppler again till she’d gotten his okay. She wasn’t sure Seth was Rayne’s last lover . . . she kind of thought he wasn’t . . . so she was willing to be patient and stay out of Taft’s way, especially since Seth appeared to be into illegal drug trafficking of some kind.

  She’d also checked the news cycle, hanging on anything to do with Granger Nye’s death, but there was precious little. No one was saying it was anything but an accident. Detectives Haynes and Verbena were in charge and Haynes had given a non-answer to the media, which meant the police weren’t labeling it an accident yet.

  Her mind flipped back to Jesse James Taft’s lips.

  “Damn . . .” she whispered. At the same moment the manager answered and they worked out an appointment time of four p.m. She immediately started feeling anxious about losing out. The one-bedroom unit was on the second floor, about the center of the complex, and she suddenly wanted it so badly she could hardly stand it. She told herself that there would be something else if she didn’t get it, but the tactic didn’t work. She wanted this one.

  With that in mind, she drove over early. Three o’clock. If he wouldn’t show her the unit yet, she would just wait.

  The manager’s unit was on the bottom floor with an OFFICE sign tacked onto the outside. The complex itself was L-shaped, two stories with a center outdoor stairway and one on each end. It was gray shingled and had a gated, designated parking area underground, and also an aboveground blacktopped area at the backside for visitors and residents with more than one or two cars. In front of the building there were about three spots marked with time limits, several fifteen-minute-ers, and one for one hour max. Mac pulled into the one hour max limit. She had a good view into the manager’s office.

  Her cell buzzed and she saw it was Taft. Immediately her nerves buzzed in anticipation and her pulse increased. She gritted her teeth and wanted to smack her palm to her forehead. She felt like a teenager and she had not enjoyed her teenage years. She answered with, “I hope this means you have work for me. I’m seriously trying to get an apartment and I need an income stream.”

  “Where’s the apartment?”

  “Near the Barn Door. You know it?”

  “A Laurelton landmark,” he said dryly. “Leaving River Glen, huh?”

  “I grew up in Laurelton.”

  “Welcome home,” he said, a smile in his voice.

  Did he know? Had he seen her reaction? There had been a moment of awareness between them; she was
sure of that. They’d both played it off like it was nothing, but did he know?

  “Do you have work for me?” she asked, her eyes on the SUV that had pulled up. A young couple had gotten out and were now walking into the office, holding hands. Were they going to look at her apartment? She was starting to feel very competitive.

  “I’ve had someone keeping tabs on Keppler for me,” he said, “but he’s been off the grid for a few days.”

  She felt a pang of rejection that he’d turned to someone else. “So you do have someone on surveillance.”

  “In a sense.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “One of my CI’s is a watchdog. He’s been gathering information. I’m waiting to hear from him.”

  “Information on Seth?” If she’d thought about it, she would have known he had confidential informants at his disposal. Any good investigator did.

  “I have something else in mind for you. I want to take my measure of Andrew Best, and I’m thinking about how to go about it. He knows me by reputation through Mangella. I’ve never met him, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “You want to get up close and personal without him recognizing you.”

  “I want to see where Nye died. The possible crime scene.”

  “You think someone killed him.”

  “I think there are a lot of connections to Keppler and your friend Bevins and Andrew Best, maybe Mangella, that could circle back to Nye.”

  “Troi Bevins is not my friend,” she protested. “Okay, so what do you want me to do?”

  “We could go look at a Best home together.”

  “What’s the play?”

  The couple had come back out with the manager and were climbing the middle stairway to the second floor. Mackenzie gritted her teeth. She was set on this apartment but it looked like the gods were against her.

  “I think you and I are in the market for one of the homes near where Granger Nye fell. We’ll go to Best Homes offices and will undoubtedly be fobbed off to someone else rather than Best, but it’s likely Best will be around because of Nye’s death. We’ll get as close to that particular house as they let us. I think we should show up as a married couple.”

  “Really?” The thought boggled her, but she recovered enough to say, “A ruse. Not exactly how we do it in the department.”

  “Good thing you’re not a cop anymore.”

  Bantering with him only made things worse. She said crisply, “I can play that out.”

  “Okay, I’ve made an appointment for five thirty this afternoon. Mr. and Mrs. John Adams.”

  “Well, gee, I don’t think I can make it that fast. Can you wait?” She checked the clock on her dash. “I’ve got things to do. I need this apartment.”

  “I want to get there just before closing.”

  “Do you have ID for us?”

  “Won’t need it yet. We’ve put money down on a Laidlaw house and only have until tomorrow to back out of it and buy a Best home. They’re going to talk to us fast and deal with details later.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Good. Come to my place and then we’ll go over there together. See you soon.” And he clicked off.

  Did she have enough time? Not if these people didn’t get moving. She had all kinds of thoughts on how to stop them from renting the apartment. Taft’s less than honest tactics ran through her mind. Ruses. Ploys. Lies. She was veering away from the rules she’d abided by in the department in a big way. She wasn’t sure if that was bad or good.

  She waited while the couple and manager came out of the unit and back down the stairs to the office. They were inside for a good twenty minutes, and Mackenzie’s heart sank. This was not going well. When the young man and woman finally came out and headed toward their vehicle, Mac stepped from her RAV. “Hi,” she greeted them. “Are you looking at the unit up there?” She pointed to the apartment.

  “We just signed for it,” the woman answered her.

  Mac’s heart sank. Well, great.

  She watched them leave, then walked into the office half an hour early. The manager looked up at her expectantly. Mac didn’t waste words. “Hi, I have a four o’clock appointment to look at the apartment on the second floor that you and that couple just came out of.”

  He straightened up as if she’d goosed him. “Ah . . . yes . . . I was just going to call you and tell you it was rented.”

  “Well, thank you,” she said coldly.

  “Okay . . . Yeah.” He was about Mac’s same age with a patchy beard and a few leftover adolescent pimples, and she guessed by his uncomfortable behavior that he hadn’t had much experience at the job.

  “Do you have anything else coming up?” She was so bugged she could hardly think straight.

  He smiled at her, relieved she wasn’t going to go into a full-blown hissy fit. “Possibly . . .”

  “Possibly. What does that mean?”

  “Well, we have a situation that is . . . well, um, one of our units should be available soon? Maybe. It’s an end unit, which is a little more money?”

  “Which floor?” Mac asked tersely. She tried to hold his gaze but his eyes were darting all over the place.

  “Second.”

  “I would like to put money down on it.”

  “I don’t know for sure—”

  “I would like to put money down on it,” she repeated. “In case it comes up.”

  “I won’t know for a week or so, so . . .”

  “I’ll write you a check for first and last month’s rent, right now.”

  “And a security deposit,” he said, looking around as if he was searching for someone to help him. Then his gaze finally fixed fully on Mac. She’d tried harder with her appearance this morning than she usually did. Her hair was brushed back and clipped into a low ponytail, and she’d actually added earrings and light makeup.

  He seemed to like what he saw. “Sure, why not?” he said with a shrug, and Mackenzie pulled out her checkbook from her purse before he could change his mind.

  Half an hour later she was driving back to Stephanie and Nolan’s house, grinning. She got it. The apartment. She had a place to live of her own and a plan! The first serious step she’d taken toward the rest of her life since her decision to leave the department. She almost felt jubilant.

  Inside the pink and white room, she searched through her clothes for an outfit to become Mrs. John Adams. She decided Mrs. Adams’s first name was Brooke and that she leaned toward jewel tones. Mackenzie shook out a royal blue skirt and the silk blouse that matched it. Yesterday’s rain was a memory, but there was a cold, kicky breeze outside and she needed another layer. The dull gold cardigan sweater she teemed with the blue made her look a little like a cheerleader. Hmm. She switched out the skirt for a pair of jeans and was more satisfied. This time she fixed her hair to hang loosely, brushing it until it crackled. She eyed herself critically, carefully adding some extra mascara and dark pink, almost red lipstick.

  Stepping back, she examined herself critically.

  “You look . . .”

  She couldn’t quite finish the comment to the colorful vision in the mirror.

  Stephanie’s mouth opened in shock a few minutes later as Mackenzie tried to sneak out of the house. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I have a date with destiny.”

  “I don’t know what that means.” Stephanie couldn’t take her eyes off her.

  “I dress up occasionally,” Mac said a bit defensively.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Is it too much?”

  “The shoes are wrong . . . for whatever you’re doing. You need heels. Those flats are—”

  “I’m in jeans. I’m not wearing heels,” Mac interrupted.

  “Heels look good with jeans.” She held a hand to her stomach.

  “Sick?” Mackenzie asked with concern.

  “Same old, same old. Everything was going fine—perfect!—and now I can’t even look at food without my stomach churning.
”

  “You still glow.”

  Stephanie snorted.

  “I’m not kidding. Pregnancy looks good on you.”

  “Are you meeting Jesse?” she asked hopefully.

  Mackenzie didn’t know how to answer that. She didn’t want to foster Stephanie’s new-found interest in her possible love life. “I’m on a job.”

  “For Jesse?”

  “For Taft, yes.”

  “Does it have something to do with that foreman who died, Granger Nye?”

  Mackenzie detected a hint of worry in her voice and said, “As far as I know, his death was just a terrible accident.”

  “If you knew differently, you’d tell me, right?”

  “I don’t know anything. I’m not a cop anymore, Stephanie.”

  “Yeah . . . but you’re something.” She looked Mackenzie up and down.

  “I’ll check with you later,” Mackenzie said, and swept past her and out the door.

  Half an hour later she was at Taft’s place and was rethinking her costuming. She’d gone overboard, as if she was back in drama class.

  Then Taft came out in pressed jeans, a black shirt, and a dark jacket. He looked hip and cool where she looked . . . she didn’t even know. Theatrical?

  He smiled as she got out of her SUV and his gaze swept over her. “You look great,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she answered cautiously. “I was going for a character. Brooke Adams.”

  “Brooke? Okay.”

  “There are a couple of things I want to get clear. Last night, and today, a lot of names were tossed about that possibly had something to do with Seth’s extracurricular activities outside Good Livin’. One of them was Mitch Mangella, who you work for.”

  “I do some work for Mangella,” he clarified.

  “And you think Mangella might be involved in Seth Keppler’s drug deal.”

  “I hope to God he isn’t.”

  “That would be a deal breaker.”

  “Of course,” he answered coldly.

  “That’s why we’re going to see Andrew Best. You’re worried that he’s a part of it, maybe a big part of it, because he’s connected to both Seth Keppler and Mangella and now his foreman’s dead.”