by Misty Simon
Good Lord. Not only a monologue but a self-aggrandizing one. Awesome.
“And so she, too, was the perfect scapegoat.”
I took a breath right before I challenged her. It might be my last one ever. “Perfect, except for the idiot nephew and the idiot cop and the idiot you, who thought you could get away with it.”
She came for me, just as I had hoped she would. In a flash of movement, I stood, kicked out my leg with the chair attached to it, and nailed her right in the chest with the wooden seat. I was against violence on a daily basis, and I sometimes had a hard time watching action movies, because they made me wince, but when she went down, I did a little cheer inside, right before I hopped and hobbled out of the house and started yelling like the place was on fire.
To echo Bethany’s sentiments, maybe yelling was not my best idea, but I was not going to get far with this chair attached to my leg. I reached down to untie it now that I was semi-free, or at least free from that house and that woman, but a hulking figure came toward me from my right. Could this be Jackson? I was gearing myself up to take another swing with the chair when I recognized my cousin, Matt.
“Why in the world are you screaming, and what is that attached to your leg?” he asked, running toward me.
“No time for questions. Go arrest the old biddy on the floor in the house behind me and I’ll tell you everything I know.”
He did as I asked, but by then a crowd had developed. Max was there and my father, and even Burton stood near me. He took the utility knife off his belt again and sawed through the rope binding me to the chair.
“Not so efficient,” he said.
“And definitely not useful,” I answered as I fell into Max’s arms.
* * *
I woke up on a couch in the funeral parlor, the blue room, to be precise. My mom fluttered around my head as if she were a butterfly and I was a flower, but her face said she was likening me to a Venus flytrap.
“Don’t you ever do that again! Never! My heart can’t take this!”
“Stop yelling, Mother.” That was my dad, and I didn’t like him calling her that any more than I liked her calling him Daddy. But my head ached, so I let it pass.
“I’m going to need all of you to step out of this space,” Burton said, finally coming into view, as I tried to sit up. “Just stay where you are, young lady. I have questions, and you’d better have answers.”
Flopping back on the couch made my head pound more, but then Max was there with a warm washcloth and a kiss on my knuckles. “It’s going to be okay. I was so scared, but it’s going to be okay.”
I wanted to reassure him. I really did, yet the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth, and I must have passed out again.
This time when I came to, I was still on the couch, but in Max’s arms. I snuggled in, not sure why we were on the first floor of the funeral parlor but willing to take his embrace anywhere I could get it.
Until Burton cleared his throat and everything came rushing back to me.
“Oh my God! Did you get her? Please tell me she didn’t get away from you. I think I hit her hard enough to make sure she didn’t move until someone got there. Oh, but Jackson could have carried her off. I didn’t think of that! Crap!”
“Slow down there, Tallie,” Burton told me. “Everyone has been caught, and even a few bonus guys, just for good measure. Once Marg started talking, she did everything she could to get out of the charges, but they’re going to stick like superglue. And we picked up the girl who helped Preston throw away the body, so no worries there, either.”
I sighed in relief, not wanting to have any loose ends that might come after me again.
“You can rest easy,” he added.
“And maybe you can now, too,” I answered.
“What?”
“You were working too hard. You were a mess and your shirt was rumpled and you were so stressed. When I was making my way to the station, I so wanted to be able to give you the name of the killer, but I was afraid I’d hit a dead end. Then Marg kidnapped me, and if nothing else, I was happy to be able to help.”
Burton shook his head and stared up at the ceiling. “You’re killing me.”
“No, I saved you. Now, what do you need from me? She did her unloading of all the information, so if there’s anything she isn’t telling you, I bet I can fill in the gaps.” I sat up with Max’s help. “Is she singing like a canary?”
Burton burst out laughing. “My God, you can be annoying, but you also are incredibly thorough. I have everything I need, but if I come across anything I’m unsure about, you’ll be the first person I ask. For now, rest. We can talk tomorrow. It’ll be soon enough.”
He left the room, and it was just Max and me.
“Sorry about all this,” I said. “I didn’t mean to get drugged and tied to a chair.”
His laughter wasn’t a burst, more a puff of disbelief. “I’m just so happy to have you back and unharmed. You are unharmed, right?”
I rotated my shoulders and shook out each leg, then rolled my neck. “Other than a headache, I’m good as gold.”
“You certainly are, and no matter what Burton says, he was extremely worried about you and incredibly grateful for all the info he now has.”
“He’d better be,” I said, but I didn’t actually mean it. He was a good cop and did a good job. Sometimes I just got there faster.
“Now, since you’re a little incapacitated and shouldn’t move for at least the next ten minutes, and the bad people have been caught and Burton has things under control, I thought I’d take a minute to talk to you about my plan for moving up here.”
“I’m all ears.” I had already heard everything Marg Petrovski had to say, and I knew most of the Preston story. I could get the rest of it tomorrow if I wanted it. But right now I wanted to think about happy things, and Max made me the happiest I’d ever been.
“I talked to your dad.”
I groaned. No good conversation started with that sentence.
“Are you hurting? We can do this later. No need to rush if you want to lie back down.”
I reached over to kiss his cheek. What a sweetie. “That groan was more for the ‘talking to my dad’ thing, not pain. I’m actually feeling pretty okay right now. So tell me what you and my dad talked about. I’m braced.”
“Well, the building next door went up for sale privately this morning. They asked your dad if he wanted it before putting it on the market. The lower floor is all set up to be an event spot, and he was thinking that perhaps you’d be willing to run that instead of working the actual funerals. Like a tea shop, but for grieving people. He even said that you could hold other events there if you wanted. Maybe Gina could help with catering.”
My eyes were about to pop out of my head, and my tongue was thick in my mouth. “Are you serious?”
“Is that a good ‘Are you serious?’ or a furious one?”
I grabbed his ears and kissed him full on the mouth. “That is totally a good question. I could be over there and still help here at the funeral home, but not be tied to the part I don’t care for here. I’d be independent. Heck, I’d even pay rent for the place if he wanted me to. And I have my fabulous crew of squeegee queens to watch over, too.”
“There’s a catch.”
I sank back against the cushions. Of course there was. “Lay it on me.”
“I would need to use a corner of the space to do taxes until something else opens up in the area.”
I slapped his arm. “That’s not a catch. That’s a bonus.”
“Okay. Then hopefully, you’ll like this part, too.”
He paused, and I held my breath. Was he going to ask me to marry him? What would I say?
“Your dad offered to let us open up the whole third floor of this building to make it into a legitimate living area, instead of a studio apartment. I asked when I was considering what the perfect space for us to live in would be, and he was very happy to offer. Dylan could help with the renovation work.�
�
“So we’d still live above the dead?”
“Quiet neighbors.”
“Quiet neighbors,” I agreed, and we laughed. After a pause, I looked him in those pretty eyes and said, “Yes, yes to all of it. And I just came up with the most awesome name for my cleaning crew. We will henceforth be called the Queens of Squeegeedom.”
I should have thought of that sooner, but now it was absolutely perfect, along with every other thing going on my life.
Keep reading for a sneak peek at
VARNISHED WITHOUT A TRACE
the next in the Tallie Graver Mystery series,
coming soon from
Misty Simon
and
Kensington Books
Chapter One
Here in central Pennsylvania, bingo could very easily be considered a death sport, filled with hurled insults, hurled troll dolls, and the occasional hurled beer bottle, depending on the venue. It could be nasty and cutthroat. And that was just in the first hour.
Maybe in other parts of the world, it was a happy, fun game, with joyous shouts of winning and prizes galore. Maybe people gathered together with dried corn and game cards that had seen a lot of use over the years. Maybe there were a lot of laughs and a lot of woo-hooing.
We, however, had a medic on hand in case things got, well, out of hand. Like that one time a bingo caller—the guy who pulled the numbers and read them off—was given a fat lip after the last game. No caller had yet landed in my family’s funeral home due to grievous injuries from doing his volunteer job, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if that happened.
In my town, it was kill or be killed when it came to a game dependent solely on a cage full of balls and some cards with corresponding numbers. Even if it was Christmas Eve.
I just hoped the rash of fires we’d had recently wouldn’t interrupt the game. Then again, maybe that was exactly what was needed to get me out of what could be an awful evening. We’d have to wait and see.
On Christmas Eve my grandmother, my mother, and I walked into the fire hall, prepared to enjoy this traditional form of entertainment, at about six. By 6:05 p.m., I knew from looking out over the sea of bingo players sitting in their historical seats that it might not be the bowl of jolly laughter my mom had hoped for to distract my visiting grandmother.
We walked up and down the aisles of long tables, empty-handed, when others had whole luggage carts of things with them. We finally settled on a table halfway to the back of the room and sat down to play the traditional Christmas Eve bingo game, with me between my mom and my grandmother, like the buffer I’d been signed up to be.
And then I was promptly assaulted by an angry woman with a bingo bag.
“Tallie Graver, you move your tushie right now. This here is my seat!”
I jumped up before anything else could be said, and found another seat another row back. Then I was moved again. By the third move, I was ready to take on any of these grandmas and chain myself to one of the folding chairs, even if my headstone would read TALLIE GRAVER, DEATH BY DAUBER. I was sure my dad would direct a beautiful funeral and have Mortimer Smith down the road carve me a lovely headstone.
I wasn’t complaining too much, though. Since I’d already been moved away from my mother and my grandmother three times, I was out of harm’s way. I hadn’t counted on those women who had been playing for fifty-seven years, every Tuesday without fail, and always sat in the same seat, but I should have.
My grandmother was old enough and had lived here her whole life, before moving to Florida five years ago, to simply turn around and give the first demanding “You stole my seat” accuser the mom eye. She had backed away, apologizing. Grumbling the whole way but still apologizing first.
With her steel-gray hair pulled into a severe bun, my grandmother was not to be trifled with. It was probably one of the reasons my mom could be such a softy. I would be, too, if I’d grown up with someone who could stop someone in their tracks with one disdainful glance.
I, however, was not in that age group, nor had I achieved the level of evil eye that Jane Moreland had at eighty-five. For many reasons, I had never gone up against my mother’s mother for anything, even when I was too little to understand what that meant. There was just something about the forbidding woman that made you walk on tiptoes. So I had made my way through life preferring to stay under her radar. Even my ex-husband, Walden Phillips III, had never tried to take her on, and that was saying something.
But I was supposed to be the buffer between the two women this evening. She was my grandmother, and I had agreed to support my mom, Karen Graver, while Jane was here for the next ten days. Ten long days.
Getting moved meant I still got points for being in the firehouse, playing bingo, but I didn’t have to be next to Grams while she kvetched about every person in the room and even some who were long dead.
I ended up between Alice Mudge, the sweetest woman in town, and Ronda Hogart, probably one of the meanest. Sweet Alice was also a little crazy, but I’d take that any day over the constant sneer on Ronda’s face.
This was going to be so much fun.
I almost wished I had put my foot down and told my mother I wasn’t going tonight. My boyfriend, Max Bennett, was here for our first Christmas Eve, and I wanted to spend it with him and just him. Instead, he had come with us and was currently wandering around, looking at all the food on the laden tables against the walls. My best friend, Gina Laudermilch, had outdone herself, along with the pizza shop down the street and the diner at the edge of town.
“It’s so nice to see you, Tallie,” Alice said, straightening her hunter-green cardigan with its snowman pin and smiling with her whole face.
“Just stay out of my way, girl,” Ronda barked. She was also my great-aunt, or something like that, on my mom’s side. Really, anyone older than you that you knew was related became an aunt or an uncle, and anyone your age was usually called a cousin.
I’d lost track of how many people I was related to and how I was related. I knew only that the same blood ran through our veins, and that made us family, to some extent. And it was expected that you would tolerate, if not exactly cherish, those blood relatives. So I had to be nice to her, even if she wasn’t someone I specifically wanted to spend any time with.
“Happy holidays to both of you,” I answered. “Hopefully, there are some good prizes tonight.”
Alice’s smile widened, and Aunt Ronda just snorted, then said, “Why did Christmas have to fall on a Wednesday this year? All you interlopers playing at my game and cutting my chances of winning. It’s a disgrace. They should have closed it to all you toe dippers and left it to the people who are committed. There’d better be some cash prizes, or I’m taking it up with Howard.”
Howard Allerman was the mayor of our little burg. And I had no doubt she’d do just that. Christmas Eve tended to be more of a basket bingo event, where instead of money, you walked away with a basket full of goodies. I would have preferred cash, too, but I probably wouldn’t win tonight, so it didn’t matter. Part of me hoped to win just to make Ronda mad, but the other part wanted to get out of here without the wicked queen of bingo breathing venom down my neck.
Looking around the huge fire hall, festooned in swags of evergreen branches and red ribbon, I zeroed in on my boyfriend. When we’d walked in, I’d sent Max on a mission to buy me something to munch on to get me through sitting between my mother and my grandmother. Now I might need him to head down to the bar on the corner if I had to sit between these two.
Mom turned around at that point, with her brow crinkled. I could hear Grams talking from here, even though I couldn’t make out what she was saying. It must have been something mean, because my mom looked like she was going to scream. I shrugged at her and pointed to my two seat mates. The little hooligan smiled like the Grinch standing at the top of the mountain, making plans to ruin the Whos’ Christmas.
Well, at least I didn’t feel so bad now....
So here I was, sitting in
a metal chair at a plastic table, waiting for the girl to come around with the bingo cards. On either side of me, the two ladies started pulling out all manner of things from their custom tote bags. Bags that were emblazoned with the words bingo queen in very precise and brightly colored embroidery. Bags that had holsters stuffed with all their good luck tokens. Bags that were their lives.
Why did I have to get stuck next to the bingo queens? And how many queens could there be in our little town? It was a nightmare come true. And then a third one walked over, with her own bag absolutely bulging with all manner of things.
“Why, hello, Ronda,” Jenna Front said, lowering her bag to the table, next to the older woman. This was one bingo queen I wouldn’t mind fraternizing with.
“Seat’s taken. Go away.” Ronda didn’t even look up at her.
Jenna’s face went stony. “There’s no one here.”
“There might be, and I’d prefer it to be anyone but you.” Aunt Ronda placed her bag on the chair. “I have four kids, not five and certainly not six. Whatever that rat of a husband of mine has said or done before, that’s not going to change just because of what he wants. Now, we’ve had our words. Go bother someone else.”
Jenna left in a huff, and I almost got up to follow her. She’d recently signed on for my cleaning crew, so I felt responsible for her. We could commiserate about how mean this woman was, and maybe she would be better company.
I had put my hands on the table and was starting to rise when Ronda’s heavy hand fell hard on my shoulder. “Don’t you dare. Tina should be around soon with cards, and I won’t have you making the game later than it already is. She’ll be fine. She’s just in a tiff.”