Journaled to Death

by Heather Redmond

  She parked and called Vellum.

  ‘Mom, I have a yearbook meeting today,’ Vellum said in an irritated voice when she picked up.

  ‘I just wanted to make sure. There’s a car blocking our driveway.’

  ‘I’m still at school.’

  ‘OK. Have fun. Call me if you need a ride home.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Vellum said, still exasperated.

  ‘Love you.’ Mandy hung up. Should she call the police?

  A knock on her passenger window sent her stomach plummeting into her intestines. Mandy shrieked and flung out her arm. Her phone dropped into her lap. She ducked her head to see who’d knocked and saw her cousin Jasmine.

  Mandy closed her eyes. Now what? She grabbed her phone, her purse and her tote bag and climbed out of the car, making sure to be out of punching distance when she stepped onto the sidewalk.

  ‘I honestly don’t think a single thing that belonged to Ryan is still in the house,’ she said defensively.

  ‘I’m not here for that.’ Jasmine shifted from side to side. Her hair was short and dark, making it obvious that the blond had been a wig. Her heavily made-up eyes hid her feelings, but her mouth held distress.

  ‘What’s wrong? I mean, other than just losing your brother.’ Mandy’s voice caught with emotion.

  She fidgeted uneasily again, ignoring the intensifying shards of rain. ‘I spoke to my therapist today. She said no one could be blamed for Ryan’s drinking.’

  Mandy nodded. ‘It’s a disease. I didn’t enable it in any way.’

  ‘You gave him a home,’ Jasmine said in a dark tone.

  Mandy didn’t see that as a problem. ‘He had a steady job. He could afford it, here or somewhere else. Honestly, I think he was enabling me to stay here.’

  Jasmine folded her arms over her chest. ‘I never understood your relationship.’

  ‘I know. But he was good to me.’

  Jasmine sniffed. ‘And now neither of us have him.’

  Mandy’s lips trembled. She closed the distance between them and pulled Jasmine into a hug. Her cousin pressed her face into Mandy’s knit cap and squeezed her hard. After a long moment, they pulled away simultaneously.

  Mandy blinked away tears. ‘You have my dad’s ears. I never noticed that before.’

  Jasmine touched her ears. ‘My hair usually covers them.’ They stuck out a little bit.

  ‘Want to come inside for a cup of coffee? I might still have some cinnamon streusel muffins in the freezer.’

  ‘Just coffee. I don’t eat carbs.’

  Mandy didn’t want prickly Jasmine back, so she just smiled and went up the steps and under the archway. At her front door, she found a package from an art supply company, probably some swag to review, and a number of envelopes. ‘If you want to go into the kitchen, I’ll be there in a second.’ She bent to pick up her mail and then took off her coat before following her cousin.

  Mandy filled her coffeemaker and switched it on. ‘I think I have some edamame in the freezer. Should I heat that up?’

  ‘That’s OK,’ Jasmine said, leaning against the stove. ‘You don’t have to feed me. Where is Vellum?’

  ‘At a meeting. We have at least an hour until she gets home.’

  ‘Do you think Ryan had any hidey holes?’ Jasmine asked.

  Mandy hesitated. ‘I honestly don’t know of any in the basement, but I’m as stumped as you are about where Ryan’s money went. He had that job for years. It’s not like he’d have debts to pay off, you know, interest rates eating up his income or anything.’

  ‘He had a girlfriend about five years ago who was a real opportunist.’

  ‘Keep going,’ Mandy said, pulling a pint carton from the kitchen. ‘You still put coconut creamer in your coffee, right?’

  ‘Yes. Anyway, she would demand expensive gifts and Ryan supplied them. I’m sure every penny back then went to her. It’s possible some of the jewelry was on instalment plan.’

  ‘I remember her, I think. Wore a lot of leopard print.’ Mandy considered the idea. ‘It might have taken a couple of years to pay off.’

  ‘Right. But not five.’

  Mandy hit the button to start the first cup of coffee brewing. The machine churned. Mandy’s phone burbled from a distant room. She went into the living room and retrieved it.

  Scott had texted back. His text said, Dr O yelled at Ryan once for bringing the wrong lightbulbs for his assigned locker. It made the lights flicker.

  When was that? Mandy texted back.

  Around Christmas. I can’t remember anything else. Why? replied Scott.

  Just wondering. Mandy thought quickly and typed again. You know, how stable Ryan was toward the end.

  The answer came just as fast. I told you his job was at risk.

  Yep. That tells me all I wanted to know. Thanks. Mandy texted back, then shoved her phone into her pocket and went back to the kitchen. The first coffee cup had filled. She handed it to Jasmine, then started another pod brewing for herself.

  ‘You didn’t keep any cans of coins, did you? Maybe they are in an out-of-the-way place? I’d understand if you did,’ Jasmine said quickly. ‘I remember Grandma complaining about all those heavy jars of Grandpa’s pennies that were in the garage and what a pain they were to deal with.’

  ‘I remember that too, but why do you think there were more coins around?’

  ‘There was a box of empty coin rolls.’ Jasmine took a drink of her coffee, then licked her lips. ‘I thought maybe he rolled up his change, you know, to keep his hands busy? Something to do to keep from drinking.’

  ‘I know he picked up coins all over the place. He always did, remember?’

  ‘I remember when he saw a penny on the ground, he always pointed it out to you so you could pick it up for good luck.’

  Mandy smiled. ‘He did look out for me when we were kids. I wish alcoholism hadn’t caught him. Who else drank in our family?’

  ‘Grandma’s father, from what I’ve heard,’ Jasmine said.

  Mandy retrieved her cup from the coffee machine. ‘Ryan probably rolled his change and put it in the bank.’

  ‘No bank account, remember?’

  ‘Maybe Dylan and Alexis took them to their bank,’ Mandy said. ‘Let’s go downstairs. We can comb the basement and see if I’m missing something.’

  Jasmine unzipped her four-inch heeled boots. ‘Let’s do it, but not because I’m accusing you of hiding anything.’ She smiled at Mandy.

  Mandy took the boots from her and set them against the wall. Maybe she couldn’t have Ryan back, but perhaps with the jealousy terminated because of his death, she could have a friendship with her other cousin.

  She and Jasmine spent a delightful couple of hours together. That had not been a guaranteed result, once they discovered one pasta sauce jar full of American pennies and a Cool Whip tub full of Canadian coins in Mandy’s Christmas decoration closet.

  She had genuinely thought she and Linda had packed everything and hated to be caught in a lie. But Jasmine poked through the containers and determined the pennies weren’t covering anything more valuable, so she remained calm. She’d even helped Mandy bring it all upstairs to clear out the closet.

  After that, Mandy had been forced to play detective with Jasmine, checking the carpet edges for pulled up spots, wandering along the walls looking for hidden compartments or old cabinets like the one on the stairs. They had opened Great-Grandma’s sideboard and gone through the cabinets, poked around the laundry room, and found nothing more that belonged to Ryan.

  Jasmine had left in a good mood, and Mandy had been left with an empty stomach that had sent her over to Linda’s for a brownie before picking up Vellum at the bus stop.

  When she walked Vellum home, she saw Crystal drive by. She sent Vellum inside and waited for her neighbor to get out of her car, then pounced.

  ‘Did the police ever talk to you about the night Ryan died?’ Mandy asked, crossing her arms over her chest for warmth.

  Crystal frowned a
nd scratched a scab on her chin. ‘Yeah, but I wasn’t home. I didn’t hear anything.’

  ‘You were out?’

  ‘Yeah, getting take-out. Why?’

  ‘Well, someone got into my house. I thought maybe they crossed through your yard or something.’

  Crystal shrugged. ‘Wasn’t home. The kids had the TV going so they didn’t hear anything.’

  ‘Right.’ Mandy forced a smile. ‘Well, thanks.’ Even the Roswell kids had each other for an alibi. Aiden might have pushed Ryan down a flight of steps, but the kid would have a tough time striking a grown man on the back of the head with a hammer. On to the next idea.

  Mandy loved Tuesdays. For a couple of hours, she could pretend she worked from home full-time, before reality hit and she had to climb into her car for a drive to the USea Hospital for the start of her shift. At least she wasn’t Kit, having to go straight from one job to the next.

  Oh, right, that was exactly her life too. When she booted up her computer that morning, she found a dozen new sticker orders, all of them including the new cherry blossoms. Her latest designs appeared to be a hit.

  Warbling ‘Happy days are here again,’ she filled out her inventory sheet, but since she had no idea what the rest of the song was, just hummed as she drank coffee and readied her orders. By the time she updated her finance spread and grabbed the envelopes, she had just enough time to drop them off and still make it past the University of Washington sprawl, the Montlake Bridge, and on to the hospital.

  At the hospital’s front entrance, she saw a couple of police cars driving away as she walked up the slope between the parking garage and the main doors at nine-twenty. Nothing unusual, as they often came to take reports from victims, but she noticed the police more often now and wondered if Detective Justin Ahola ever handled cases around here. She had only the foggiest notion of how the police were organized.

  Still though, when she walked into the main hall, it seemed more chaotic than usual. A bad accident, or even a murder?

  ‘There you are,’ Fannah snapped as Mandy walked through the door. ‘I’ve been texting you since seven-fifteen!’

  ‘My shift starts at nine-thirty on Tuesdays,’ Mandy said evenly, trying to hold onto her good mood. She clocked in then went to stand next to Fannah, who was shuffling through papers on her desk.

  ‘Kit didn’t show up for her shift, so I tried to reach you.’

  Mandy reached into her slacks for her phone, then realized she was wearing a pair without pockets. What had she done with her phone after checking it this morning? She thought back. ‘I must have left my phone on my bed. I never went back in my bedroom after I put my makeup on. Sorry.’

  Fannah huffed. ‘That’s very irresponsible of you.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Mandy said. Had Kit decided to ghost the coffee bar? ‘Did you find her?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Fannah said. ‘A security guard came by to tell me, but not until eight-fifteen a.m., mind you, that Kit was assaulted in the hospital parking garage last night.’

  Mandy’s mouth dropped open. ‘Is she OK?’

  Fannah rolled her eyes. ‘Just bruises, but she decided to take the day off without notifying me. Can you imagine? I could fire her for that. I had a rather harsh phone call with her.’

  ‘I would start looking for a new hire,’ Mandy said in her most delicate tone. She didn’t want to betray Kit’s trust, but she knew they’d need another person soon. ‘At least you’d have a backup for emergencies. Which this certainly is.’

  ‘Yes, poor Kit.’ Fannah muttered something in another language and pointed at the door. ‘You need to get out there and open up.’

  ‘Open up?’ Mandy gasped. ‘You mean we’ve been closed all morning?’

  Fannah’s face shuttered. ‘I couldn’t track her down and run the counter, could I? We’ve been open intermittently.’

  Mandy ignored Fannah’s commentary and rushed through the door. She turned on the lights and took the ‘Emergency Closure’ sign off the counter. As if by magic, the ant-like trails of people in the front hall changed course and began to line up in front of the cash register.

  While Mandy frantically took money and filled orders, her brain churned with questions about what had happened to Kit. First of all, had it actually happened at all or was it just an excuse?

  She supposed if Security and the police were involved, something had occurred. Therefore, the next question was: was it random or related to Ryan’s death somehow?

  She had no answers, but was shocked to see Kit appear behind the coffee bar at noon, with dark pink and purple circles under her eyes and a visibly cut lip. One hand was bandaged around her palm. ‘Are you OK? What are you doing here?’

  Kit sighed. ‘It was a rough night, but I can’t afford to miss more hours.’

  ‘Oh, Kit,’ Mandy said, going to her for a hug, but Kit stood, wooden-doll like, instead of returning her gesture. She stepped away. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Someone punched me in the face just as the elevator door opened. I fell into a garbage can and cut my hand.’

  ‘Security cameras?’

  ‘Not at that angle. They probably knew what they were doing.’

  ‘Did they take your backpack?’ Kit carried one everywhere she went.

  ‘No, they shoved their hands into my pockets, but then they ran.’ Kit pointed to the counter. ‘Incoming.’

  Mandy whirled around and forced a fake smile at Dr Burrell. ‘The regular?’

  He pulled off his glasses for a moment. ‘I thought I didn’t have a regular order?’

  For the first time, she realized he had the looks of a craggier Chris Pine. Dr Burrell could fit in on a Wonder Woman set. ‘I’m trying to turn it into our little joke,’ Mandy explained.

  His face lit with a smile. He put his glasses back on. ‘I’d like that. And I’ll take this last egg salad sandwich and a coffee.’

  His glasses didn’t do anything for his face. They were the wrong shape. He went back to being invisible Dr Burrell. ‘Anything for you, Doctor B.’ Mandy rang him up. Silently, Kit pushed a cup over the counter toward the surgeon.

  ‘How did you avoid having your nose broken?’ the surgeon asked, staring at Kit’s eyes.

  She pointed to the cup until he picked it up. ‘I don’t know. It’s all a blur.’

  ‘I hope we don’t lose you over this,’ he exclaimed. ‘What a thing to happen.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Kit assured him. ‘I’m not quitting. It could have happened anywhere.’

  ‘Unfortunately true,’ he agreed.

  The customers behind him inched forward, eager for their caffeine fix. Mandy sent the surgeon on his way and waited on the next batch of customers, keeping very busy until Fannah sent her on her lunch break.

  Mandy went into the back room. She needed to remain alert on hospital grounds from now on. No daydreaming or staring at her phone while waiting for elevators. When she remembered her phone, that was. Before she headed to the cafeteria, she called Vellum from the backroom’s extension and left a message about not having her cell on her.

  Then she went up the steps to get her lunch. She hadn’t seen Dr O’Halloran at all today. The surgeon continued to make her nervous. Could he have somehow mistaken Kit for Mandy and attacked her as revenge for his public humiliation? It didn’t seem as if whoever had done it had been very serious about robbing Kit. Maybe there had been another motivation. But it seemed odd that her cousin had been murdered and her co-worker attacked just two weeks apart.

  Dr O’Hottie appeared at the coffee bar at two o’clock. Kit waited on him as Mandy was busy making specialty drinks for a half-dozen family members there to see a new mother. Listening to Kit flirt with the surgeon, Mandy didn’t sense anything sinister in his actions or behavior. She added his order to her list and kept making drinks as customers swarmed the coffee bar.

  Kit clocked out promptly at three-thirty, leaving Mandy’s hands full as they had not had a lull since one-thirty. She worked steadily, her arms achin
g and her head spinning as she turned to the cash register, then made drinks, then spun again, rinse and repeat. A conference let out at five and she had a run on coffees for the participants’ drives home, meaning she had to brew coffee and refill the urns.

  Finally, at five-thirty, it slowed down and she could clean up the mess. Staring at the puddles of espresso, dots of milk froth, and all the containers around the sink, she sighed and wished she could turn on some peppy music to keep her going like she could when she cleaned at home. Some early 2000s’ pop music would be perfect about now.

  She had just finished with the sink when she heard footsteps. When she turned she saw Jeanie Christie, the ER nurse, along with a younger woman in scrubs who she saw rarely enough that she hadn’t been introduced.

  ‘Double shift, Jeanie?’ she asked.

  ‘Emergency surgery,’ Jeanie said. ‘Listen, I like you, so I’m giving you a heads up.’ She nodded at the other woman.

  ‘I’m Doctor Nguyen,’ the other woman said.

  ‘She’s an intern,’ Jeannie explained.

  ‘Doctor O’Halloran’s hands were shaking so badly he was dismissed from the surgery today,’ Dr Nguyen whispered.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ Mandy breathed. ‘He was here at two.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. My co-worker Kit took the cash register just in time to wait on him because I was busy with other orders. I didn’t talk to him.’ She didn’t explain why the encounter had been memorable.

  ‘Did you make his drink?’

  ‘Yes. His usual quad shot.’

  Dr Nguyen’s brows lifted. ‘Well, he’s blaming you for his hands. He said you gave him a quad shot instead of a double.’

  Mandy frowned. ‘He always orders a quad shot. I’m sure that’s not it.’

  ‘Maybe he only asked for a double?’ Jeanie suggested.

  Mandy opened her mouth to deny that, then realized she didn’t know. ‘I made it on autopilot in between multiple orders. I suppose it’s possible but, oh …’ She rubbed her eyes. ‘The cup would have been equally full either way. We get so busy sometimes you just assume regulars want their regular order. It’s kind of a badge of honor to have one.’