Bad Housekeeping

by Maia Chance

  I bolted awake to the earsplitting blips of the burglar alarm. My heart chugged hard. I squished my glasses back onto my face, stood, and looked around blearily. The fire poker. Yeah.

  I grabbed the brass fire poker and tiptoed to the doorway that connected the den to the living room. The living room was empty, so I tiptoed through that too. I went down the center hall, peered into the dining room, and—aha. The dining room French doors that led out to the back patio were wide open. Curtains billowed, and rain sprayed in. I shut the doors, locked them, and then went to the kitchen to disarm the security system. The phone rang. It was the security company asking if everything was okay.

  “I think so,” I said. “I think the wind blew some French doors open and set off the alarm.”

  I was pretty sure that had been the case.

  * * *

  It was pouring rain by ten o’clock. I got dressed and went downstairs. My clubbing outfit was hidden under a shapeless trench coat I’d excavated from the hall closet. The gold pumps were the only clue that something was going down—if anyone had been home to see them. I stood at the kitchen counter, buried in the raincoat and scarfing down confetti cake until I heard a honk outside. I shoveled in the last bite, put the fork and plate in the dishwasher, and rearmed the security system. I grabbed my backpack and dashed through the rain.

  It was about one hundred degrees inside the Cadillac and smokier than a burning building. Chester was at the wheel, wearing a fedora. Effie was in the passenger seat in a white fur coat.

  “Do you have a camera?” Effie asked me.

  “I have one on my cell phone. All charged up and ready to go.”

  “Does it have a flash?” Chester asked.

  “Yup.”

  We were seriously doing this. Woo-boy.

  Chester parked two blocks from Club Xenon.

  “Don’t you think we should park closer?” I said. “What if we need to make a quick getaway?” I thought of Bud’s caveman-whose-bison-drumstick-was-stolen face.

  “Give me a break,” Chester said. “This is Naneda. Small-town USA?”

  “Then why are you wearing that ridiculous fedora?”

  “I’m ridiculous?” Chester said. “You’re the one who looks like a flasher.”

  “All right,” I yelled. “I’ve just about had it with—”

  “Children,” Effie said.

  Chester and I fell silent. The three of us slammed the car doors and trudged down the wet sidewalk, chins tucked in coats to keep out the slanting drizzle.

  “This rain is going to absolutely ruin my fur,” Effie said.

  “I cannot believe you’re wearing poor little dead animals,” I said.

  “It’s vintage, darling. Vintage fur doesn’t count. These little animals have been dead since the Nixon administration.”

  The yoga studio and the cupcake shop were dark as we passed, but the front windows of Guido’s Italian Ristorante poured light onto the slick pavement. Even though I’d just wolfed down a hunk of confetti cake, I couldn’t say no to a little pasta voyeurism, so I looked in as we trooped by.

  My heart shriveled. Roger and Shelby were bent over glasses of wine, heads dipped, fingers woven tight, smiling.

  “They remind me of the dogs in that stupid Disney movie,” Chester said. “Come on.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me down the sidewalk. “You can’t let Roger see what he’s doing to you, Agnes. He doesn’t deserve the satisfaction.”

  “He’s not doing anything to me.”

  “Oh no? You look like your self-esteem just turned into pink slime.”

  “Fine. I feel like screaming and throwing stuff, okay? But it’s not because I want him back. Our relationship sucked. There was no passion, and frankly, I hate discussing French critical theory. But . . .”

  “You do want him back, so you can dump him,” Chester said.

  “How did you know that?” I walked a little faster.

  “It’s what every dumpee wants, darling,” Effie said.

  I gave myself a mental shake and blotted Roger and Shelby from my mind. I was (maybe) about to do a drug bust. Eat that, Roger.

  “Okay, guys,” I said to Effie and Chester as we drew closer to the club, “we go in, get photos of deals if we see them, and also try to figure out if Bud is aware of pot dealing in his club. Then we get the heck out.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much fun,” Effie said. “I want a drink.”

  “I was thinking of dancing,” Chester said.

  “Fine,” I sighed. “But only a little. We have a job to do, and we have to do it well.”

  “That’s from The A-Team, right?” Chester asked Effie.

  “I thought it was from Rocky and Bullwinkle,” she said.

  The bass line of a dance track pulsed out of Club Xenon, and college-aged kids huddled over cigarettes on the sidewalk. The neon sign was all lit up.

  “Look at that,” I said. “Looks like Dorrie Tucker couldn’t convince Budzinski to cease and desist with the neon sign after all.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Effie said. “Dorrie probably has as much persuasive power as a plush toy. No oompf to her.”

  “She goes to Skeeter’s Shooting Range,” Chester said. “So does Susie Pak. I saw them both back when I temped as a receptionist there. So maybe Dorrie has some persuasive power.”

  “What?” I said. “Dorrie Tucker and Susie Pak shoot guns?”

  “Yup. Vulnerable single ladies need to pack heat. It’s the American way.”

  We filed through the double doors.

  Inside, Club Xenon reeked of spilled beer and cheap aftershave. Ah, youth. Blue-and-purple lights pulsated. The place was ant farm–full, since the university’s fall semester was starting the next day. Almost everyone was on the dance floor or milling in sweaty packs around the bar, but there were seats and tables on the balconies.

  I elbowed Effie. “We should go up to a balcony,” I said over the music. “Good vantage point.”

  Effie nodded. We bought drinks and went upstairs. All the balcony tables were taken. Effie rectified the situation by telling a clump of drunken college boys to scram.

  “Jeez, Auntie,” Chester said, sliding into the low U-shaped couch.

  “What?” Effie said. “They’re young. I’ve got bunions.”

  I stripped off the trench coat, took a tentative sip of the drink Effie had ordered for me—a yellow concoction with a sugary rim—and coughed. While Chester was slapping my back, a familiar face caught my eye, down on the edge of the dance floor. “Omigod. It’s Gothboy.” I pointed. “This is almost too easy.”

  Gothboy stuck out like a vampire bat in a petting zoo. Most of the crowd wore jeans and T-shirts—or, in the case of the frat boys, polo shirts—and everyone was smiley and laughing. But Gothboy’s pale-powdered face glowed in the strobe lights, and his dark sweep of emo hair and all-black outfit disappeared each time the lights pulsed.

  “He’s really creepy,” I said. “Just standing there.”

  “Look,” Effie said, “someone’s approaching him.”

  Two girls with long, swingy hair and sparkly tops approached Gothboy. I scowled inwardly. Those girls were just two more incarnations of Shelby—two-thirds human and one-third My Little Pony. Mere mortals like me couldn’t compete.

  “Oh-ho,” Chester said. “A little transaction, perchance?”

  It was tough to see in the blinky light, and people kept crisscrossing in front of Gothboy and the girls, but it sure as heck looked like the girls gave Gothboy something, and then Gothboy passed them something. Something really small. The girls left.

  “It’s true,” I whispered. “He’s selling drugs. Let’s go get some pictures.” Effie stood, but Chester stayed seated and seemed to shrink under his suit and fedora. I followed his eyes.

  Lauren.

  “Hey, guys!” Lauren said, approaching our table. She was ready for the foxtrot in a beaded flapper dress, with a long black clutch tucked under her arm. Her lips were crimson, and her eyelashes
looked glued on.

  “Hey,” Chester croaked.

  “Hi, Lauren.” I slid out of the seat so Lauren could be next to Chester. I hoped he’d pee his pants from fright. “Effie and I will be back in a minute.”

  Effie and I both polished off our drinks, I grabbed my backpack, and we teetered down the stairs. On the way, we passed the hallway that led to the bathrooms and Bud’s office. A line of girls snaked out of the bathroom. Two of them were crying. Just like a middle school dance.

  “I hope you don’t need the loo,” Effie said to me.

  “Nope.”

  “Good. And I’ve got my Depends on.”

  “What?”

  “Kidding, darling.”

  We reached the outer perimeter of the dance floor. “Where the heck did Gothboy go?” I asked Effie over the deafening music.

  “I don’t see him, but it’s very crowded. Let’s sit at the bar—I see two free stools—and keep looking. My right bunion is really acting up tonight.”

  We settled on two stools surrounded by steamy bodies. Effie expertly flagged down a bartender and ordered us martinis. I scanned the shadows around the dance floor for the white smudge of Gothboy’s face.

  A college-age guy sidled up on Effie’s other side. “Hey,” the guy yelled to her over the music. He bobbed his head in time.

  Effie raised her eyebrows.

  “I freaking love this song,” he yelled. Bulked-up muscles strained the sleeves of his baby-blue polo. His curly hair was gelled, and he had a slightly turned-up leprechaun’s nose. Handsome, in a jocky way. Oh yeah—and about twenty-two years old.

  The bartender slid a martini to Effie and one to me. “Twenty bucks,” he said.

  Mr. Jocky slapped a twenty and two singles on the table. He winked at Effie.

  “Oh dear,” Effie said. She took a deep swallow of her martini.

  “So, you come here a lot?” Mr. Jocky asked her.

  “No,” Effie said.

  “Well you should. There aren’t enough hot girls who come here.” More head-bobbing to the music.

  Effie looked at me in disbelief. I shrugged. Who knew? Maybe the guy forgot his contact lenses. Or maybe he had a grandma thing. It happens.

  “Agnes,” someone said by my ear.

  I swiveled. “Otis. Hi.” My belly fluttered. Darn it all.

  “This place is a zoo,” Otis said, “and it makes me feel so old.” He glanced around the bar area. “I feel like I should be marching these girls back to their moms. Jeez. I never saw so many belly button rings in my life.” He smiled down at me. “You look really cute in that dress.”

  I hid my confusion with a slurp of martini. Red warnings flashed in my mind: System Alert. System Alert. More Booze Not Good Idea.

  And because sometimes I’m a total idiot, I ignored the warning.

  * * *

  Otis ordered a beer and then said, “So Chester told me you’re here to try to take some photos of, um”—he glanced around and leaned in really, really close—“some deals?”

  His warm breath tickled my ear and spurred a domino effect of buzzing nerves all the way to my toes. “It’s happening,” I said. “We saw Gothboy doing a transaction with some girls. I’ve lost track of him. You know what he looks like, right?”

  “The little makeup dude who bags groceries at the Green Apple? Yep.”

  Otis and I watched the crowd together. Effie was still trying to fend off the conversation of Mr. Jocky, who didn’t seem to notice that Effie was over seventy, nor that her body language screamed Beat it.

  Otis’s beer arrived. “Cheers,” he said.

  “Cheers.” We clinked.

  And something new zapped me: The whole time I’d been with Roger, why hadn’t I ever enjoyed a drink now and then? Why hadn’t I ever gone dancing? Why hadn’t I ever had a bit of freaking fun or worn lip gloss or high heels? I guess I’d thought on some level that Roger was preventing me from doing all those things. But it wasn’t true. I was the stick-in-the-mud. I had prevented myself from loosening up.

  This was a depressing revelation.

  Chapter 18

  “Agnes?” Otis said over the chatter and hammering dance music. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” I shoved my glasses into position. I glanced away, to look at anything but Otis and his swim-team bod, and saw in the flashing purple light a college-aged guy and girl place pills on their tongues and wash them down with alcohol.

  “Omigod,” I whispered to Otis. “I just saw those kids over there popping pills.”

  “Where?”

  I pointed. No need to be discreet in this madhouse.

  The pill-popping pair were gyrating onto the dance floor in that self-conscious way kids have.

  “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised,” Otis said. “I mean, it’s a nightclub, and college kids take drugs, even in idyllic Naneda.”

  All true, yeah. But I’d come to the club that night looking for pot deals. Harder drugs were not part of my investigation.

  “Excuse me,” I said to the bartender when he passed by.

  He stopped. “Yeah?” Another Mr. Jocky, although this one had intelligent eyes.

  I leaned toward him over the bar. “I’m an investigative journalist from the Boston Herald, and I’m doing a piece on the Kathleen Todd murder.” Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

  The bartender’s eyes widened. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’m working on profiling her family. It has come to my attention that Kathleen Todd’s daughter, Megan Lawrence, was, well, let’s just say close with Budzinski, the owner of this club.”

  “Megan Lawrence?” The bartender’s furrowed brow looked genuine. Unless he was a drama major, he had never heard of Megan.

  “She’s in her midthirties,” I said, “pretty, blonde, yoga pants—”

  “Yoga pants!” The bartender snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah, I’ve seen her. Always tons of makeup and the yoga pants, drives a black Range Rover?”

  “That’s her. You’ve seen her here at the club?”

  “Uh-huh. Several times in the last two, three months. I thought she was a vendor—you know, like a liquor saleslady or something.”

  “So she goes into Budzinski’s office?”

  “Uh-huh. Early in the evening before the club opens, usually, right about when I come in to get ready for my shift. Not during club hours.”

  “Office door shut?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “I dunno. Sometime last week? But I mean, she could’ve been here even today. I don’t, like, notice every single thing that happens in the club. Listen, I gotta go.”

  “Thanks for your help,” I said.

  “Wow,” Otis said to me once the bartender had dashed off. “You’re amazing.”

  “Amazing at lying?”

  “Let’s just say you’re amazing in general.”

  My cheeks were on fire.

  Just then, I saw Gothboy straight across the dance floor from where I was sitting.

  “Psst!” I poked Effie’s bony arm. She still hadn’t gotten rid of Mr. Jocky. “Stop ignoring me, Aunt Effie!”

  Effie turned. “I thought you were ignoring me, Agnes, and I wasn’t about to interrupt your conversation with Delicious Treat.” She smiled and made twiddly fingers at Otis, who could not—please, Jesus—hear what she was saying through the hubbub.

  “Gothboy at twelve o’clock,” I said.

  Effie slithered off her barstool. “Let’s go.”

  We plunged into the crowd, Otis right behind us.

  “Hey!” Mr. Jocky yelled after Effie. “You never even told me your name!”

  We weaved through the pounding, sweaty perimeter of the dance floor and stopped about two yards away from Gothboy. He and two young guys had their heads bent over something. I fumbled my phone from my backpack and tapped on the camera function. “I’ll take the pictures,” I said to Otis and Effie over the music. “You guys stay here.”

>   They nodded.

  I kept my eyes glued to Gothboy and stalked him, shoving through hot bodies, stepping on toes, and getting beer sloshed down my cleavage. I was so close. I aimed my camera at Gothboy’s hand, which had just pulled something from the pocket of his black trench coat. He was passing it to one of the young guys.

  Click.

  The guy took it and passed something—folded-up cash, it looked like—to Gothboy.

  Click.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” someone snarled, so close that I practically jumped out of my gold pumps. I spun around and found myself face-to-face with . . . Jentry.

  Omigod.

  Jentry’s sneer revealed small teeth with too many gaps.

  “Doing? What? Me? Nothing.” I dodged sideways, stumbling over feet and elbowing people, and reached Effie and Otis, who had evidently seen everything because Otis wordlessly took my hand and pulled me, at the same time propelling Effie in front of him.

  “Omigod omigod omigod,” I wheezed. “Is he coming?”

  “I think so,” Otis said.

  “Did you see his face?” I said. “He looked like he wanted to kill me.”

  “No, I didn’t see his face,” Otis said, “because I was focused on the gun it looked like he had stuffed in his jeans pocket.”

  “Did you get the pictures?” Effie asked.

  “Yes. I’m not sure if they came out, though.”

  Otis said, “Come on, let’s go out the back way, past the bathrooms. I’ll bet there’s an exit out to the alley.”

  We turned into the hallway. I stole a glance over my shoulder. No Jentry. We navigated through the line of girls outside the bathroom. We turned the corner. The music receded a little. The door to Bud’s office stood ajar, and it didn’t look like anyone was inside.

  “Hey, let’s hide in Bud’s office,” I whispered. “We could lock the door and climb out the window.”

  “I like it,” Effie said, skittering in.

  Otis opened his mouth as if to object, but he was still holding my hand, so I pulled him in the office, slammed the door, and clicked the button lock on the doorknob.

  The dance music lowered to smudgy wails and thumps. My eardrums buzzed.