by Vicki Batman
Allan set a glass of iced tea on the table.
I glanced up. “Thank you.”
His smile framed the perfect teeth. He took a swallow from a beer. “You're welcome.” He munched on the entrée, too. Between mouthfuls, he met my gaze. “Good choice on the caterer, Hattie.”
I nodded. For a while, the three of us concentrated on filling our bellies.
Jenny looked over the room, then giggled. “I don't think I've ever eaten in a women’s restroom before. Nor the men's, either.”
“Me neither. Before you ask, beer isn’t food.” Allan pointed to the platter of chicken. “Seconds?”
Jenny took a drink of tea and wiped her fingers. “No, thank you.”
I shook my head and followed with a clearing of my throat.
“Something on your mind, sweetheart?” Allan asked.
Sweetheart. That would be me. “Well—”
Jenny blurted, “We want to know what you’re thinking about the videos.”
“Videos?” He scrunched his brow. “What videos?”
“Don't play dumb, Allan.” I set my empty plate on the vanity and rubbed my hands on a pink paper square. “We talked about how I've been to Dee's Donuts and Little Egypt and watched their security tapes.”
“Oh. Those videos.” Allan nodded. “No comment.”
I moved to stand in front of him, crossing my arms. I stared at every nuance in his face, his lips, and his eyes. He knows more than he’s saying. He always does. “I can remind you if you need me to.”
He waved his piece of chicken. “Tell me what you think.”
“Dear God,” Jenny said to no one. “Not again.”
Allan and I looked at her.
She raised her palms. “What? You will go at it until one of you gets mad.”
Allan and I acknowledged each other. Together, we nodded. “Probably.”
I circled the cart. “Both Dee's and Little Egypt's tapes show someone in a white suit approaching Jonson's vehicle.”
Allan rubbed his chin. “Okay—”
“But”—I paused and raised my finger—“I see differences.”
His eyes narrowed. “Like what?”
I ticked off my right hand. “From what I’ve seen, size-wise, the person is bigger than Tracey. Hair is whiter than Tracey's. The coat doesn't exactly match Tracey's.”
Allan drank deeply from his beer and abruptly stood. He picked at a corner of the label and then took another swig.
The interesting look he placed on me made me shift away, but not for long. In the past, I learned he might be a cop, but his work behavior would never intimidate me. I firmed my stance and leveled my shoulders, noting his delicious lips—
Delicious lips?
“Anything else?” he asked.
I cocked my head to my right. His lips are delicious, and he knows how to use them. “No. Just pointing out what was recorded. The police will probably want to review, you know, to be sure.”
“You're correct. The police will review with more detail in mind. We’re requesting lengthier footage.” Allan leaned closer. “So…you love me?”
Jenny's eyes widened with Dear-God-Help-Me-Cause-I’m-in-the-Wrong-Place. She quivered with a slight head jiggle and did her best to become one with the wallpaper in the alcove.
Like anything could stop her from listening. Stepping closer, I sensed the toes of my shoes touch his.
Allan tilted my chin toward him.
Words escaped me. The urge to delve into his eyes—dark irises like a ninety-percent cocoa bar with a flash of golden light—pushed to the front. I swallowed long and deep. Lordy.
Allan nodded. “Thought so.” He broke away and returned to the cart, wheeling it to the door. “Ladies, thanks for a memorable rehearsal party.”
“Thanks for the food, Allan,” Jenny said.
He winked. “Anytime.”
The tension slipped from my legs to collect at my feet. As the door swooshed closed behind him, I blinked and swayed.
Jenny glided to my side and nudged me with her elbow. “I didn't know Allan could read minds.”
Planting my right hand against the wall for support, I bit into my lower lip. “I did.”
****
Over the next few days, my time was consumed by a flurry of tango lessons, work, and subbing for Tracey at her shower—what a non-event that was. No bride-to-be. No exclamations over gifts. Jenny had salvaged the Stuart and Tracey paper dolls from the rehearsal and set them around Kella’s living room and dining table. The best part? Eating two lemon cupcakes.
I kept busy with organizing Wedding Wonderland. I cleaned the shop more than I cleaned my apartment. First, I vacuumed the dressing rooms and then arranged the gowns in the gown room. Dusted and swept the reception area and the raised platform. Finally, I tackled the storage and office area.
On a bookcase shelf behind Miss A.’s desk, I shifted the toolbox to wedge new bridal magazines next to it. A hammer sitting on top of the hard, plastic case caught my eye. Is it the one Miss A. lost long ago? Even though Miss A. replaced the misplaced one, she would be happy about my find.
“I found it,” I said a little loudly, “Miss A.”
“What is it, dearie?” Miss A. moved to the front of the store where she polished the glass door panes fingerprint-free.
“I found the hammer.” I walked to the storeroom door and held high the tool so she could see it. “The missing one. What was lost is now found.”
“Good job, Hattie. I saved the receipt and can return the replacement I bought. The cost of a new one—it was ridiculous how much the hardware store charged. Did you put the old one in the toolbox?”
“Sure will.” Swiveling, I stepped to the shelf and lifted the toolbox lid. I dropped the hammer inside, and I took the new one and put it on her desk.
After snapping shut the lock, I saw a brown-ish residue on my palm. Resisting the first urge to rub my hand on my skirt, I sniffed my hand. Yuck. I couldn't determine the scent, but pleasant did not come to mind. With a second sniff, a faint…metallic odor found my nose. Confused, something about the smell nagged me. I tried to remember, but the memory wouldn’t resurrect.
I reopened the box and checked out the hammerhead on the old tool. Nothing weird, just beat-up and used. I studied the new one, then the old one. Wisps of light brown fuzzy lint were stuck on the nail driver of the new one. No clue what that could be.
While I considered, I focused on Miss A.’s white jacket, which hung from the brass coat hook screwed onto the back of the office door. I set the new hammer on her desk.
Somehow, I needed to unravel this conundrum. I studied the coat, its size, and the blue embroidered name. The pockets. I was struck by how similar it looked to Tracey’s suit coat.
While my head wrapped around “coat,” I compressed my lips. Something filtered through my thoughts, and I envisioned Miss A. at the crime scene wearing her white jacket. And wham! I knew. I really, really knew.
Miss A. went to Super Saver Grocery wearing her white coat to buy a hammer.
My heartbeat intensified. Wheeling, I walked to Miss A.’s desk and sank into her chair. I cradled my chin in my propped hands and deliberated. I’d seen the videos, and the person didn’t look like Tracey in her white suit and short hair. The person looked like…Miss A.
-Both wore a white coat.
-Both had light-colored hair.
-Both were near Jonson Leggett’s car.
My feminine intuition told me Miss A. murdered Jonson. I bet twenty bucks she used the new hammer I just found. Allan said someone left fingerprints on Jonson’s car—beside my sister. Do the prints belong to Miss A.?
Ey, yi, yi. I should call Allan. He knows what to do.
I heard a rustle from behind me, and before I could check, I felt something flung over my biceps. In an instant, I felt my arms pinned against my body. I pushed to my feet. I fought, twisting from my right to my left to get loose. In the struggle, the hammer jostled off the desk. The clank on the fl
oor caused me to jerk. My legs were kicked out from under me. Off-balance, I face-planted on the cement floor.
I couldn’t focus. My head circled to la-la-land. When the pain subsided, an awareness of my surroundings filtered in. I attempted to flex my hands, but they didn’t move. Turning my head, I looked about barely able to comprehend how my arms and ankles were bound.
I wriggled to no avail. In the shadows, I saw an outline of Miss A. stooped over. She pulled on the knot around my ankles.
My boss had trussed me like a damn turkey.
I croaked, but nothing came out. Trying again, I forced out a hoarse, “Miss A.”
She hoisted herself upright and walked to stand by my head. After she pulled a hankie from her pants pocket, she fluttered the folds apart, then patted her forehead as well as the back of her neck. Her plump chest palpitated with the exertion. “Oh, my dear, Hattie. I am so sorry about everything. Things have gone from horrid to horrible.
“I didn’t think very clearly when I left the new hammer on top of the toolbox. When your friend, the detective, visited—the morning after Jonson died—to interview me, I had to move quickly and hide it. I shoved the paper bag under my desk. The other day, my foot kicked it, and I remembered what I'd done. I thought, ‘You’re in a pickle, Anna,’ and had no idea of what to do next. A splendid notion came into my mind—what better place to hide a tool temporarily than on a toolbox?”
Miss A. twisted the fine cotton square in her hands. “Everything has been so confusing and hectic and-and I guess I forgot the hammer was on top of the toolbox.”
God, no words. “I…don't…understand.”
“You don’t, dearie? Looks like you are the dimmest bulb in the store.” She tilted her head. “Shall I explain? It is all so simple—really. I killed Jonson Leggett the Third.”
Oh. My. God. Miss A.—a work colleague I admired, and whom I believed was a friend, and my mentor—killed my sister's ex?
But her dispatching Jonson made no sense.
Concentrating on what was unfolding made my head hurt. I needed to focus on her. “You-you did? You killed J-Jonson? W-why?”
She lifted a shoulder. “What a prick. A slimeball like you said. Repeatedly.”
“Lots”—I swallowed profoundly and rubbed my jaw against my shoulder—“of people…are slimeballs, but most humans don't murder them.”
“True.” Miss A. frowned. “Jonson and I appreciated a different philosophy about marriage. His track record—not on par.”
She propped one hand on her hip in the teapot stance all pre-teen girls learned in deportment classes.
“You and I know his marriage to Barbie wouldn’t have worked out, and she would have divorced him, and down the road, he would have married again. He didn’t value the sanctity at all. A serial groom similar to a serial killer.” She snorted. “Serial groom. Ha-ha. Funny if I do say so myself.”
Miss A. was right. Jonson Leggett the Third only valued himself and sex. The whole world knew of his narcissism. And serial groom—an appropriate appellation.
But is Miss A. a serial killer? Oh my God. This is horrific. I felt my belly roil and not in a good way.
Miss A. bent over and pulled on the knots hobbling my hands to confirm their tightness. Standing, she brushed the dust from her palms. “Jonson’s devil-may-care attitude toward marriage rubbed me funny. He was walking the aisle for the third time. I couldn’t let him. His awful pattern would continue, and it just made me so angry.
“You see, my dear, I know all too well his type. My ex-husband did the same thing. Married six times, he found his final resting place with the Lord.” Miss A. crisscrossed her chest in the fashion devout churchgoers did.
I didn’t know people could be married so many times in our state. I mumbled, “S-six times?”
“Absolutely. Where I lived before, my understanding is there’s no limit to how many marriages. All that’s needed is proof of divorce.”
“Who would want to marry someone after two or three or five times?”
“As I said, you're only partially dim.” Miss A. scuffed the toe of her shoe against the desk leg. “Back to my ex, he had an, oh, let’s say, an accident.”
An “accident”—like Jonson’s? Miss A. posed as a sweet, older woman; yet, inside that façade housed a psycho insane one.
Lordy. Some people were never who you thought they were.
What about me attracts weirdoes?
In my DNA, I must possess one of those syndromes the talk show hosts on television described. Probably the “Be Kind to Everyone” my mother instilled in me with her oft-repeated little lectures.
“It was a long time ago.” Miss A. ran her fingers over her forehead. “I bumped into my former husband at the grocery store, and things got out of hand. I let him seduce me in the back seat of his Cadillac.”
Her mouth shaped a vague faraway smile. She bounced lightly on her toes, flouncing her hankie.
“Ooh, how we tested the springs,” she said. “Such a charmer. Good thing it was nearly dark out.”
The daydreamer look on Miss A.’s face—a pleasing sweet gleam in her eyes and a happy countenance—while she remembered her ex and their, er, affair, made a bilious churn in my stomach creep up the back of my throat. I swallowed multiple times to avoid throwing up. It was the last thing I ever wanted to do.
She waved her hand. “Did you know it rains almost every day in Seattle? But one particular Friday—if I remember correctly—simply glorious.” She clasped her hands to her chest and sighed. “It had been a long while since I had good sex, and my ex-husband performed—well, good, just like the old days.” She assessed a distance with her hands, which looked to be twelve inches.
Ick. Ick. Ick. Did Miss A. just rate the size of her ex-husband’s man-part? I sooo didn’t need to know that.
“Afterwards, I freshened myself with the handkerchief he passed me while he sat in the front seat. He strummed his fingers on the steering wheel impatiently. Then he said, ‘Hurry, Anna. God, you’re slow. I’ve got people to see.’ I took ‘people’ to mean ‘other women.’
“Well, dearie, his lack of consideration infuriated me. No way to treat a lady after sex, except maybe a prostitute, and I have no doubt he would have been kinder to her. I was no prostitute. Not a hooker. Not a whore. I am above that. And he cleaned out our bank account, most of which was my money. My money. Mine. I became infuriated.”
“Are you still alive?” She nudged my foot with the toe of her sturdy navy-blue heels. “Where am I?… Oh yes. Thinking about the harsh words he’d spoken made the sting of them grow and grow. A hurt developed in my chest. My brain seized in a white light.”
The corners of her mouth drooped. Furrows as deep as canyons between her brows developed. How in the hell am I getting out of here?
“I went to take my purse”—she showed me how she stretched her hand toward the floor—“and instead of my bag, I, somehow, ended up…with…a hammer, one most likely from the tool kit he deposited on the back-seat floorboard. I guess it fell out.
“I stared and stared at the hammer in my hands. I rolled it in my left, then the right hand. I raised my head when I heard him say, ‘Seriously, Anna. What’s taking so GD long?’ Before I could utter, ‘One Mississippi,’ I hit him on the head.
“Oh my God, the sound—like a hideous clack—nothing else like it. The blood spurted. I-I recoiled. Everything was so shocking. The smell. My mind snapped into another zone. His skin color faded from pink to gray. His eyes shut. His limbs—limp. What happened? What did I do? I had no idea he would die. Then, I noticed the blood. The blood on the hammer, my arm, and the car. Something possessed me to clean. Clean the car's interior. Clean my arm. Clean-clean-clean everything I touched.”
No amount of cleaning could fix her problem.
“With my slip, I wiped my arm and the interior and eased my way out of the back seat. I took the hammer with me, which I disposed of in a pond at a nearby park. I even took his—”
I could
n’t plug my ears so I couldn’t hear—
“—handkerchief, the one I’d used. I held it between my—”
Don’t say teeth. Don’t say teeth. Don’t say teeth—
“—fingernails.” She pinched her fingers.
I could hardly blink. My eyes seemed super-glued to open.
“No one ever figured out what I did… Oh, Lord. The police interviewed me because I was the ex. But they had a lot of other ex-wives to contend with besides me. Later, I reasoned I did the world a great service by ridding humankind of the slick philanderer. I shouldn’t have done what I did with him. Still, a long time had passed since good sex came my way.”
Miss A.’s face glowed with the remembered orgasm. “Lordy. He still had it. All…twelve…inches.”
Again, with THE Number. I wondered about older men and how he got it up without Viagra and thinking of what old-man penises look like. My imagination took me to ugly, bumpy, stumpy sour pickles, like the king-sized ones in white plastic buckets sold at the movies. I shook my head. Gross.
I did not want to know. I did not need to know. I needed to leave Wedding Nightmare-land. I wiggled like a landlocked earthworm.
Miss A. yanked the knots tighter, then turned me over.
Because of the awkward bend to my body, my arms strained in their sockets. My feet grew numb. Her handiwork cut deep ridges in my skin. The pain? All encompassing. I held my eyes shut until the agony passed.
Miss A. straightened. “Those knots should hold you, my dear.” A moment later, she added, “Sorry. I really am, Hattie. You were the best I ever employed. Now, I must go.”
“You’re leaving me…here?”
“I have to, dearie,” Miss A. said. “I don't want the police to catch me. I'm pretty sure a little old lady like me wouldn't do well in prison.” With her gaze fixed on me, she stepped toward the exit.
I wanted to plead, beg, scream, cry, but I couldn’t. I lay on the floor, dumbfounded, knowing my boss had transformed into the classic villain.
Miss A. stepped beyond the threshold and pulled the door to.
Perhaps, regret, caring—who could say, and at this point, who cared—but something made her pause.
“I should phone your friend Jenny and let her know you’ll be late while we catch up with paperwork. Since my car is a direct tie to me, I will take yours—”