by Celia Kinsey
“I could eat,” I said.
The Bird Cage Café might not look like much. It might have broken down steps and a broken down clientele who haunted it, but it had Juanita Gonzales, and Juanita Gonzales made the best food I’d ever eaten. I’d been eating Juanita’s food for as long as I’d been old enough to lift a fork, and I’d yet to come across anyone who could rival her.
“What about you, Jason?” Juanita asked. “Could you manage a bite?”
Mr. Wendell nodded. I wondered if he was a regular at the Bird Cage Café. He didn’t look like the sort who’d patronize such a rough-around-the-edges establishment, but maybe there was more to him than his handmade Italian leather loafers implied.
“I made fresh tamales this morning,” said Juanita, without giving us an opportunity to order. “I bring you both a plate.”
I sat down at the table farthest from Hank, who was still working on his cigar and pretending he was the only one in the room.
Mr. Wendell walked to the front of the dining room and cracked open a window before coming and sitting down across from me. I hoped he wasn’t planning to charge me 200 dollars an hour to watch him eat Juanita’s tamales.
While we were waiting for Juanita to return with our plates, the front door opened, and a generically pretty blonde of about twenty came in. She was wearing an apron over a ruffled dress that looked utterly unequal to the task of holding up to grease and green sauce. I wondered where Juanita had found her.
The waitress beamed in our direction—well, mostly in Mr. Wendell’s direction—before disappearing into the kitchen. She didn’t even look over at Hank. Apparently, Hank was such a fixture he didn’t bear acknowledgment.
“Who’s that?” I asked Mr. Wendell.
“Chamomile.”
“Like the tea?”
Mr. Wendell nodded. “Chamomile is Katie’s daughter.”
“Who’s Katie?”
“One of your tenants at the trailer court.”
I wracked my brain. I didn’t recall any Katie. The last time I’d visited Little Tombstone, there’d been only two permanent residents of the trailer court, although there’d be the odd vacationer or snowbird who’d take one of the empty slots from time to time.
As I recalled, there were only two tenants: Morticia the Psychic—I never had asked about her real name—perhaps her parents had been diehard fans of The Adams Family and Morticia was her real name—and Marcus Ledbetter, who went by his last name. Ledbetter was a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. My aunt Geraldine had once explained that Ledbetter suffered from PTSD, and that was why he rarely left his trailer.
“Katie must be a new tenant,” I said.
“I moved here two years ago,” Mr. Wendell told me, “and she was living here then. Katie’s the mail carrier for Amatista. She does the rural route.”
I was about to make a smart remark about the rural route being the only route Amatista had, but then I remembered that everyone within village limits had to collect their mail directly from the post office and realized that I’d just be stating the obvious. Besides, Mr. Wendell had the air of a man with a severely limited capacity for sarcasm.
Juanita emerged from the kitchen carrying two steaming plates of tamales. Chamomile brought up the rear with two tall glasses of iced tea.
After patting me affectionately on the cheek, Juanita withdrew to the kitchen.
Before following her, Chamomile bestowed an unnecessarily sunny smile on Mr. Wendell. She even tossed her flaxen hair a little and batted her fake lashes, something I’d never seen anyone do in real life. Clearly, Chamomile had a thing for the man, but Mr. Wendell appeared immune to her charms.
It struck me as odd that Chamomile would be interested in Mr. Wendell, considering he must be closing in on thirty, but after I thought about it for a few seconds more, it no longer seemed so strange. Mr. Wendell might be one of only a handful of men in the village of Amatista who was both gainfully employed and still had all his own teeth. Mr. Wendell was undoubtedly the only man who drove a spotless Land Rover and wore custom-made shoes. He wasn’t bad looking, either, provided one could get past the starchiness.
Just in case I was paying for the privilege of dining with Amatista’s most eligible bachelor—
if the absence of a ring on Mr. Wendell’s left hand could be believed—I decided to pump him for legal advice.
“I’m getting a divorce,” I said.
Mr. Wendell practically jumped. His fork clattered to his plate, spattering his spotless white shirtfront with salsa verde.
“Pardon?” he said.
“I’m getting a divorce,” I repeated. “I mean, you being a lawyer and all, I thought I might ask you a few questions since you’re right here in front of me unless this is strictly off-the-clock.”
“No, no, ask away,” Mr. Wendell said, leaving me more in the dark than ever as to whether he considered eating tamales with me as part of his duties as executor of my great aunt’s estate or if he was planning to present me with a bill later on for legal services rendered while eating Mexican food.
“It’s about the will,” I said. “Could my soon-to-be-ex-husband claim a portion of what Aunt Geraldine left me?”
“You’ve already filed for divorce?”
“Yes.”
“In the state of California?”
“Yes.”
“Property acquired by gift or inheritance during the marriage is that spouse’s separate property. Additionally, many states—and I believe that California is one of them—also provide that property spouses acquire before the divorce but after the date of legal separation is separate property.” He managed to sound as if he were reading off a legal document, even though there was nothing in front of him.
“Good to know,” I said. “Can I ask you something else?”
Mr. Wendell was distracted. He’d noticed the sullied purity of his shirt front and was futilely dabbing at the green speckles on his chest with a paper napkin.
“Hydrogen peroxide,” I suggested.
“What?”
“For the stain. Full strength hydrogen peroxide before you put it in the washer. I’m an expert on stains. I’m always spilling something on myself.”
Mr. Wendell looked up at me as if to say he’d thought as much, even though I hadn’t managed to get anything on myself. Yet.
“What’s your other question?” he asked.
“How would I go about recovering an investment I’d made in my husband’s business?”
“Do you have any legal interest in the business?”
“No. My husband is a cosmetic surgeon.”
Mr. Wendell looked surprised. I don’t look like the wife of a cosmetic surgeon. Frank—my husband—was always offering helpful little hints on how I could improve myself—or rather how he could improve me—but I never took him up on any of his offers, not even for a bit of Botox.
“If you could provide me with supporting documentation and specific details, I could better advise you.”
“He doesn’t have it anymore,” I told Mr. Wendell.
“The cosmetic surgery practice?”
“No, the money.” I was babbling now. I’d been up since three a.m., Pacific Time, and the shock of finding out that Great Aunt Geraldine had left me all her earthly goods, plus Earp, was contributing to my feeling that this was all just a weird dream.
“Your husband took off with the money?”
“No, Shirley did.”
“Who’s Shirley?”
“His business manager.” And his mistress, but I didn’t feel like telling Mr. Wendell that. Shirley was the reason Frank and I were getting a divorce, and it wasn’t just because Shirley had stolen every last cent of what I’d earned from finally selling my screenplay. That money was supposed to be paying for Frank’s big office remodel, and Shirley had gone and blown it at the roulette tables in Vegas.
I might have carried on and told Mr. Wendell the whole torrid tale, except that we were interrupted by Hank.
&nb
sp; “You’re the new landlady,” Hank said. It was a statement of fact, not a question.
“That’s what he tells me,” I said, pointing across the table at Mr. Wendell.
“Well, I want to know what you’re going to do about our little problem,” Hank said.
“I’ll get to work right away on getting stuff repaired,” I said. “I’m sure there are hundreds of things that need fixing, so I’ll need to prioritize. If you could make me a list of the most urgent—”
“I don’t mean that,” said Hank. “I want to know what you’re going to do about our alien invaders!”
Chapter Three
“I suppose there’s no chance that was Hank’s offensive way of demanding that I evict a family of undocumented immigrants, is there?” I asked Mr. Wendell after Hank had left the café, taking his cigar with him.
“When Mr. Edwards refers to aliens,” Mr. Wendell said, “I’m afraid he’s speaking of extraterrestrials.”
“Is that Hank’s new thing? Aliens? Last I knew he was obsessed with inventing an engine that would run on water, not little green people.”
“You’ll have to ask someone else about Mr. Edwards’ current areas of interest,” said Mr. Wendell, pushing back his chair and standing to his feet. “Now, before I go, I feel it is my duty to confirm that Earp consents to your aunt’s arrangements for his future.”
We’d finished our tamales, and Juanita emerged from the kitchen to inform us that our meal was on the house.
“I’ll come back and see you,” I told her, “once I’ve seen Earp.”
“Morticia will be overjoyed to have you take Earp off her hands,” Juanita said. “The little rascal doesn’t seem to like Morticia very much, but she’s who your Aunt Geraldine named as his guardian until you could take over.”
The trailer court occupied a tumbleweed-strewn lot behind the derelict motel. One corner was taken up by a couple of run-down tourist cottages, and the remainder by a double row of narrow concrete slabs with a gravel alley running down the middle. Only three of the twelve slots were occupied.
Morticia’s motorhome, which functioned both as her home and business premises, was easily the most striking feature of the trailer court. It occupied the prime position nearest the side street.
There was no danger of anyone passing by without noticing Morticia’s ancient Winnebago. She’d painted it every color of the rainbow, and the central feature of the design was an enormous, vaguely menacing eye painted on the side. Underneath the eye were the words: Tarot. Your Future Foretold. Free 10-Minute Readings.
Morticia never charged for the first ten minutes, but she’d always make some break-through discovery at the nine-and-a-half-minute mark. Surprisingly often, according to my Aunt Geraldine, Morticia’s hapless clients would happily fork over her standard rate of three dollars a minute to hear what the cards had belatedly revealed.
Morticia answered the door on my first knock. The smell of incense wafted out the open door of the Winnebago, and from within the patchouli-scented interior, I heard a miniature sneeze.
“Sorry about your aunt,” Morticia said without preamble. “Somebody should have told you she was sick. I’d have called you myself if I’d known Geraldine was keeping it from you.”
“That’s all right,” I said.
Me knowing she’d had cancer wouldn’t have prevented my Great Aunt Geraldine from dying. Even though part of me was mad at her for going and dying like that without even giving me a chance to say goodbye, part of me understood. Aunt Geraldine had always had her own unique way of doing things, and who was I to say how she should have handled the realization that she was going to die?
“Earp in there?” I asked. “Was that him that sneezed?”
“Yeah,” Morticia said. “He hates the incense, but it’s essential to creating the proper atmosphere, so I make him put up with it.”
“Earp,” I called out.
I heard the dull thud of a small body hitting the floor, and two seconds later, my shins were being pelted by an elderly pug who seemed unreasonably excited to see me. Earp wasn’t the dog he used to be, but considering his advanced age, he was still remarkably springy. Every time he jumped, Earp got his nose an inch closer to my handbag.
“Cookies,” I told Morticia.
“Cookies?”
“Gingersnaps, to be exact,” I said, withdrawing a small cookie from my handbag and feeding it to Earp.
Now that I was responsible for Earp’s health and well-being, I’d have to start carrying something better for an elderly dog than gingersnaps, but just this once for old time’s sake, I was prepared to indulge him.
I noticed that Earp, unlike when his mistress had been alive, was going around in the nude. I wondered what had become of Aunt Geraldine’s extensive collection of doggy costumes and festive sweaters. I was guessing that, much as Earp might miss my aunt, he wasn’t missing the indignity of getting shoved into some ridiculous outfit every morning.
It was only three weeks until Thanksgiving. Had my great aunt still been with us, Earp would have been dressed, on alternate days, either as a tiny stove-pipe-hatted pilgrim father or a turkey, complete with tail feathers.
The cookie seemed to calm Earp down a bit, so I reached down and picked him up. He settled into my arms and sighed.
“How do you manage that?” Morticia said. “If I try to pick him up, he growls at me.”
I shrugged. It was a mystery to me, too.
“I’ll be going,” said Mr. Wendell, who’d been standing off to the side while Earp and I were reunited.
“You want a reading before you go?” Morticia asked him, glancing speculatively at his custom-made shoes and $200 haircut. “First ten minutes are free.”
And the subsequent minutes would be calculated to come out to whatever amount Morticia suspected Mr. Wendell carried on him in cash. I was guessing about $500 in a mixture of hundreds and fifties, although Morticia would really be forced to exercise her creativity to get a reading to go on that long at a rate of three dollars a minute.
“Go on,” I told Mr. Wendell. “If you go over ten minutes, it’s on me. I’ve been recently informed that my days of financial insolvency are suddenly over.”
Earp had snuggled down and tucked his nose under the floppy sleeve of my sweater. He was emitting contented snores at regular intervals.
“I don’t think—” Mr. Wendell protested.
“I think it’s the responsibility of us all to support local businesses whenever possible,” I said.
Mr. Wendell hesitated, which was all the permission Morticia needed to clutch the sleeve of his crisp white shirt between her crimson-painted fingernails and tug him up the steps into her motorhome.
I thought Morticia was going to succeed, and I would have considered it money well spent to see a man like Mr. Wendell sit through one of Morticia’s readings, but it was not to be.
I’d followed them inside, and as I navigated the dark and cramped interior of Morticia’s motorhome, I stubbed my toe.
“Ouch!”
My outcry startled Earp out of dreamland. He yelped and pawed at my sweater until I set him down on the floor. Still agitated, he shot out the open door of Morticia’s Winnebago and took off at a pace I would not have thought possible for a dog of his advanced years.
I gave chase, but every time I’d get close enough to try and lure him back with a ginger snap he’d remain just out of my reach. I tossed a ginger snap to Earp in hopes of getting him to come closer for a second cookie, but instead of coming closer he took the ginger snap in his teeth, retreated under Ledbetter’s trailer, and started to dig.
At first I thought he intended to bury the cookie for consumption later on, but it soon became apparent that Earp had already eaten the cookie and was digging something up, rather than burying it. Ledbetter’s trailer was parked in one of the two slots in the trailer court which didn’t have a concrete pad underneath, and Earp created quite a cloud of dust with his vigorous efforts.
I got down on my belly to watch him work. He clearly was not going to come out until he’d completed his job. Morticia sat on the steps of her motorhome, transparently amused and relieved that Earp was no longer her problem. Mr. Wendell stood just far enough off to avoid getting any flying dust on his luxurious loafers.
Earp dug for fifteen minutes, gradually unearthing his treasure. He emerged from under the trailer, and I awkwardly got up off my stomach and started to brush about three pounds of dirt off the front of my sweater in preparation for giving chase again, but pursuit was not necessary. Earp trotted right up to me and dropped his treasure at my feet.
“Is this a present?” I asked him. He gave a little bark and flopped down on the ground next to the gift, exhausted from the exertion of moving six times his body weight in dirt and gravel.
I picked up my present. It was the weathered leg bone of a fairly large animal, obviously an old favorite of Earp’s because one end had been chewed almost to splinters.
“Do you think this is a cow bone?” I asked Mr. Wendell. “It looks too big to belong to a deer.”
“I don’t think that’s from a cow,” Mr. Wendell said, taking the bone from me and examining it. “I can’t say for sure, but it looks suspiciously like a human femur.”
Chapter Four
“It probably is a human bone,” said Morticia, making me jump nearly out of my skin. She’d come up soundlessly behind us. “The first time Earp dragged one of those things in, it creeped me out,” she continued, “but then I asked around and found out that a couple of the graves from the old cemetery up on the hill have suffered from erosion, so I figured—”
Mr. Wendell offered the bone back to me, but I declined.
“That’s disgusting,” I said. “And disrespectful to the dead. Why doesn’t anybody do anything about it?”
“Oh, I told your Aunt Geraldine, and she called the county. They sent a couple of guys from the road crew out to the cemetery with shovels,” Morticia said, “but I don’t think a man with a shovel is going to do much good against half a hillside slowly washing away. Those graves need to be dug up and moved, but they are so old that the families of the deceased are long gone, too, so who’s going to foot the bill for moving them somewhere else?”