by Becky Clark
I finished buttoning my coat, shoved my feet in my clogs, and left, slamming the door behind me. Screw him.
Six
I slept late the next morning. My phone was off, the curtains drawn, and I was good with ignoring the world. But I knew I couldn’t. I summoned the energy to contemplate a grilled cheese sandwich and grudgingly check my phone.
I groaned at the number of missed calls and texts. While I scrolled through them, the phone rang. Sheelah.
“Charlee! Finally. Are you okay?”
“I guess, but—”
“Where have you been?”
“I was—”
“Why was your phone off ?”
“Because—”
“I heard what happened.”
I kept quiet, waiting for her to take a breath. Frankly, the silence was fine with me.
“Charlee? You there?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“The police came to my house. They acted like you killed her.”
I wanted to say “killed who?” but I figured that wouldn’t be as sardonic and self-mocking as I wanted it to be.
“I got so flustered I couldn’t even remember my dentist’s name. I didn’t know what to say.”
“What did they ask you?”
“Where I was that morning, did I know Melinda, did I read your manuscript. And some questions about you. Stuff you’ve said about her, how you conduct your research, your relationship with the others in the group. I told them I’m kinda new so I don’t really know much.”
In critique group years, I guess a year was kinda new. But would the cops agree or think she was trying to cover for me with a lie? I groaned.
“What? Did I say something wrong?” I could hear the worry in her voice.
“No, you did what you had to, but ugh. I can’t believe this is happening. I don’t really know what to do.”
“At least you have Ozzi for support.”
“No, I don’t. We had a huge fight last night. He all but accused me of the murder.”
“I’m sure that’s not true. It was just a misunderstanding. You probably overreacted because of all the stress you’re under. I’m sure it’ll blow over.”
I curled my lip at the suggestion the fight was my fault, but I tucked away the idea to mull over later. “Maybe.”
“Besides all that, how are you doing? Are you eating and sleeping? Or at least trying?”
“I guess.”
“Charlee, I know you and Melinda weren’t friends exactly, but it’s still hard.”
“Yeah. I’m confused and scared, and for a nonviolent person I’m having a lot of revenge fantasies. If I get my hands on whoever did this, it won’t be pretty.”
Sheelah made a noise I couldn’t identify. “When I lost my kids I wanted revenge so bad I lashed out in every direction. Even at the cops. Especially at the cops. Speaking of which, be careful. They’re not to be trusted.”
I remembered Sheelah telling me about losing her family. I’d never asked, but the way she spoke made me think it was a car accident. “My brother’s a cop. He’s helping me.”
“Is he? I’m sure he’s one of the good ones.”
“My dad was a cop, too.”
“Again, one of the good ones.”
Was he? “Up for debate. He died on the job. Big cloud hanging over it. Afterward, my mom ran away to New Mexico and my brother went to boarding school. I stayed with some friends, graduated early, and went to college.” Weird and depressing how such a huge chunk of my pathetic history could be summed up so easily.
“That’s terrible,” Sheelah said. “You kinda lost your family, too.” I didn’t respond, couldn’t respond, so she added, “I’m an idiot. I’m sure this isn’t helping you at all. Want to get some lunch?”
“I’m making grilled cheese.”
Talking to Sheelah was helpful, but the idea of going out into the world was beyond my capabilities at that moment. I didn’t have a lot of close friends besides AmyJo, and she and I were so different it was often a chore to confide in her. AmyJo always wanted everything perfect, especially me. It was nice to have somebody like Sheelah. I wished she and AmyJo got along better, but they’d seemed like oil and water from the minute they met. If nothing else, AmyJo should have worshiped Sheelah for her ability to solve plot problems. She’d unraveled many knots in AmyJo’s stories. I wished she could do the same for my real-life problems.
“Ah, comfort food,” Sheelah replied. “Want me to come over and keep you company?”
“Thanks, but no. I’m not fit for human interaction.”
“Okay, but you call me if you need anything. I mean it, Charlee.”
“I will. I hope your tooth feels better.”
“Geez, that’s so sweet of you. Everything that’s going on and you’re worried about me. I’m sure your problems will be cleared up before mine. Stupid dentist won’t do anything until the infection is gone. Ten days on antibiotics. They better start working soon. The whole left side of my face hurts and it’s all swollen up, too. I’m scaring babies and old people.”
“Ooh. Send me a picture.”
“You got it.”
We disconnected and a text popped up with a selfie of Sheelah making a ridiculous face—cheeks puffed out, eyes bugging, mouth twisted. I laughed. Thanks to her, making a sandwich didn’t seem so overwhelming for a minute.
The phone rang and I immediately picked it up, assuming it was Sheelah again.
“Nice picture,” I said.
“What, dear? It’s Veta.”
“Oh, Veta, I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else. I’m also sorry I never returned your calls from yesterday and this morning. I’ve been … busy.”
“I understand. How are you?”
“I’m okay, but I’m trying to get my ducks in a row here.”
“Charlee, the police questioned us.” Veta sounded worried.
Dave and Veta had been so proud when I got my first book published, and they’d turned out to be excellent first readers for my manuscripts. Both of them were insightful and logical, always asking probing questions I’d never considered as I was writing. I’d given them an earlier draft of Mercury Rising than I gave everyone else because Dave was a retired biology professor, head of his department forever. I wanted him to check with his former professor comrades to help fine-tune the mercury poisoning facts for me. I had to ask him a couple of times, which was unusual, and Veta made excuses for him. Finally, I called and Veta must have made him come to the phone, but he brushed me off, saying, “I don’t know anyone who’d know that.” So I’d dropped it and checked with that chemistry teacher my Facebook friend had suggested instead.
“Don’t worry about the police, Veta. They’re talking to everyone who read my manuscript.”
“I suppose. But it’s still unsettling.”
“I agree one thousand percent.” I paused. “Do you remember what you and Dave were doing Sunday night into Monday morning?”
Veta was quiet a moment. “The police asked us that too. Do you think we killed that woman, Charlee?”
The hurt in her voice pained me. “No I don’t, Veta. But I feel like I have to rule people out. At least for my own peace of mind.”
“Of course you do.” She paused. “Dave and I watched Netflix with some neighbors and then we went to bed. I can’t prove to anyone that we were tucked in all night, but we were.”
I sighed. How do you prove a negative?
“I’m sure you were, Veta. Have the police asked you anything more?”
“No. Haven’t heard from them since that first call.”
“Then I’m sure that means they don’t think you killed Melinda. And I don’t think you did either. Say hi to Dave for me.”
“I will. And let’s meet for lunch as soon as all this nastiness is cleared up.”
I channeled my inner Columbo. “Hey Veta, one more thing. This has been bothering me for a while. How come Dave wouldn’t help with my research for Mercury Rising?”
<
br /> She was quiet for a moment. “Charlee, you can’t tell him I told you this, but he’s had to take a job at Walmart since he retired. He didn’t want to talk with old colleagues and risk having them find out. He never even had time to read your manuscript.”
“Taking a job isn’t something to be ashamed of.”
“I know, and he’s actually starting to like it. The money helps and he’s making new friends, but it isn’t academia.”
“His secret is safe with me.”
After we hung up, I thought more about Dave and Veta. I loved when they came to our house to play cards with my parents. I’d sit in the living room, leaning on the wall just out of sight of my mother, and listen to them talk and laugh. I’d never heard adults argue like Dave and Veta. My folks agreed on most things, or maybe, because of Lance and me, they just didn’t have the energy to form so many opinions. Dave and Veta were “childless by choice,” as they announced constantly. That had seemed like an insult to me, being a child and all. Dave proclaimed that his students were his children, but I knew that was a cop-out. I bet he never had to diaper one of them, or rush them to the emergency room during an asthma attack, or pay their college tuition. But they seemed to like me. Whenever Veta saw me in the living room, hiding from my folks and listening to their banter, she’d make some excuse, then secretly bring me a plate of the fancy dessert they always brought. Typical desserts for us were store-brand ice cream, or brownies, or cake from a mix. Delicious, mind you, and always welcome on my immature palate, but Veta always brought something exotic. Baked Alaska, covered in meringue that melted on your tongue. English Trifle, with its layers of sponge cake, fresh fruit, and honest-to-goodness whipped cream. And fondue. Ohmygod, chocolate fondue. For that, she called Lance and me into the kitchen and gave us long skinny forks, waving her arm across a sea of confections to stab and dip. Pound cake, pineapple chunks not even from a can, whole strawberries, fancy cookies that didn’t come in a family-sized box of value.
I remembered the wicked delight of accepting Veta’s invitation to horn in on my parents’ fun. Stabbing, dipping, and gorging on the sweet array laid out on the counter. “How’d you make the chocolate like this?” I’d asked, shoving the delicate fork in my not-so-delicate mouth.
Veta told me, “Science, Charlee. My kitchen is my laboratory.” The memory stopped me abruptly. Laboratory.
Dave and Veta Burr were excellent, critical readers for my first drafts. And, of course, they argued all the time. Could one of them have wanted to prove a point? And what would that even be? They seemed to know everyone in Denver but had never mentioned they knew Melinda. What would either one of them have had against her? Was Melinda just a victim of some intellectual discussion they were having?
I imagined them reading my manuscript and Dave wondering about the science involved in mercury poisoning. Veta would likely take the opposite point of view. Would one of them go so far as to try to prove the viability of my methods?
I sighed. I couldn’t picture either one of them killing Melinda.
The memories of those desserts let my hunger pangs loose. I still craved a grilled cheese.
Despite the circumstances of its making, my sandwich turned out perfect enough to grace the cover of Sandwich Monthly. Not sure there was such a periodical, but there were magazines about most everything—Miniature Donkey Talk, Modern Drunkard, Cranes Today. I know because I’d had articles rejected by all of them.
While the grilled cheese was majestic in every way—butter-crisp, golden sourdough on the outside, the perfect ratio (3:1) of sharp cheddar and pepper jack melted on the inside, flowing from the diagonal knife cut—it didn’t solve any problems. I shoved it in my mouth so fast I didn’t even get to enjoy it. Worse, it didn’t cure the dull throb in my head I suspected was caused by that bottle of wine I’d had for dinner. I considered brewing a pot of coffee, and even went so far as to pull the coffee from the pantry.
Then I went back to bed.
That’s what professional writers did on a Tuesday morning if the situation warranted. And mine sure as hell did.
I woke up to a banging on my front door.
“Open up. I know you’re in there. I see your car.”
Oh no, the police! They found me. Wait. Was I hiding? That didn’t seem right. I rolled over and looked at the clock on my nightstand. 1:48 … a.m. or p.m.? I blinked.
The pounding became more insistent. I used my palms to rub my eyes. Wouldn’t my brother give me the heads-up if I was going to get arrested? Would he even know?
“Charlee, c’mon. What are you doing in there?”
I recognized that voice. My head began to clear. I propped myself on one elbow to hear better.
“I have a surprise for you.”
My neighbor, Suzanne Medina. I flopped back down on my bed. Sooo not interested in any more surprises. I was awake now and grabbed my phone from the nightstand. A new parade of messages scrolled by. Nobody I wanted to talk to.
I glanced nervously toward the living room, but the banging at my door had stopped. I ventured out to make the pot of coffee I’d abandoned earlier. I still wasn’t completely sure whether it was day or night—God bless you, Target blackout curtains model 43-529 with extra grommets—so I used one finger to draw them back, peeping out the sliding glass door near my reading chair overlooking the patio.
An eyeball stared back at me. I startled and fell backward into the chair.
“I knew you were in there. Are you avoiding me?”
“Hells bells, Suzanne. Yes. When people don’t respond to someone at their door, they are trying to avoid you.”
“Open the door.”
That was the very last thing I wanted to do.
“I have a present for you.” After a moment, the knocking on my front door started up again.
Maybe it was coffee. I cracked open the door. It wasn’t coffee. Suzanne stood there, stringy gray hair tucked behind her ears, which made them stick out more than normal.
“What’s up?” I cracked the door a bit more and blocked the doorway with my body.
She picked up a big Amazon box that had been sitting at her feet. “I told you. I have something for you.” She used the box to push me out of the way. Before I knew what was happening, she was in my living room.
“Geez, I was sleeping. Couldn’t this wait?”
“Nobody sleeps until two in the afternoon except hookers and punk rockers. Now make some coffee and join the world.”
I sighed and padded into the kitchen. Oh yeah. I’d had two bottles of wine for dinner. I moved them aside and measured water into the coffeemaker. I counted scoops of coffee into the filter but stopped with a jolt at three.
Suzanne was one of my beta readers. She could have killed Melinda. Should it mean something that she hadn’t mentioned Melinda’s death? No I heard it on the news. No Isn’t it terrible. No I’m sorry for your loss.
Wait. Had it even been on the news yet? It had just happened the day before. Online, maybe, but unless you’re scrolling around specifically looking for it, would you even see it? Melinda was a big deal in my little world, but I doubted she made a ripple in the Who’s Who pond of the Denver populace.
I still held the coffee scoop in mid-air.
“Did you forget what you were doing?” Suzanne motioned toward the coffee.
“No. Yes. I’m just—”
“You’re probably still in shock from what happened yesterday.”
I wasn’t sure if she was referring to Melinda’s murder, or me being implicated in it, or me humiliating myself at Ozzi’s. Gossip spreads through this complex like chlamydia on Colfax. “How’d you know about that?”
“I keep my finger on the pulse.”
Still couldn’t tell. “On whose pulse?”
“Denver PD.”
“What?”
She shrugged. “Everyone has a police scanner these days.”
I didn’t think that was true, but I held my tongue and finished making the coffee.
<
br /> “Too bad about your agent. Weird way to die, too.”
“What do you mean?” How much did they talk about on those scanners?
“Jumped a curb and hit a tree in her own neighborhood? No skid marks? Seems fishy to me.” Suzanne flashed her smile, and I’d never known how creepy it was until that minute. Her lips actually disappeared, making her look like a … what … shark. Yeah, a shark. I made a mental note to add that to my Character Traits file. It would be great for a killer. I gasped and turned my back on her.
I watched the coffee drip as I tried to collect my thoughts. There was no way my next door neighbor murdered my agent. Right? I mean, yeah, she read the first draft of my manuscript, and yeah, she was a weirdo with a Kindle devoted strictly to murder mysteries and thrillers. And, yes, she turned her second bedroom into a gruesome homage to murder, with floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with nonfiction books about serial killers, mass murders, and how-to references, but I always assumed she was yet another wannabe writer. Like Ozzi’s sister. The world is lousy with wannabe writers. You can’t swing a Publishers Weekly at a book signing without hitting a dozen wannabe writers.
I thought about how many times I’d borrowed those reference books from her, once even remarking that she would make a great serial killer. She’d replied, “Nah. Too obvious.”
But was it? Or was it all simply preparation? I felt a nudge on my back and shrieked.
“Wow. Maybe you don’t need any coffee.” Suzanne stood in the kitchen holding the Amazon box.
I stared at it, remembering the story I wrote with the bomb disguised as a gift. Absolutely cliché and trope-y, but my readers didn’t mind. When the ribbon was undone, BAM.
She pushed it toward me. I backed away.
“It’s on top,” she kept saying as she jabbed it at me.
I knew I looked like an idiot by backing away with every jab. I bet my eyes had that crazy come-kill-me look that people must get when they’re about to be murdered in their kitchen wearing their jammies and not even having had any coffee yet.