Deadly Sweet Tooth

by Kaye George

  “You stay away from Randy, you hear me?” Shiny wasn’t quite shouting, but she was awfully loud.

  “Shiny, back up and get away from Lily.” Tally used the most commanding voice she could, one degree louder than Shiny’s. “Leave her alone. What’s the matter with you?” When Shiny didn’t move, Tally tugged at Shiny’s shoulder and pulled her back a step. Lily moved out of range, her brown eyes open wide in fright.

  “Are you okay?” Tally asked Lily, keeping her hand on Shiny.

  “She needs to stay away from Randy,” Shiny repeated, and shrugged Tally off her.

  Lily stuck her lower jaw out and answered. “I’ll buy shoes from him whenever I want.” Lily walked across the room and out of range, frowning.

  “Shiny, you cannot come in here and harass my help,” Tally said.

  “And she can’t steal my boyfriend.”

  Tally wasn’t feeling charitable toward Shiny at the moment, so she said, “Is that the guy who was propping you up when you were so drunk a week ago?”

  “Randy’s a very nice guy. I don’t want Lily making a play for him. I hope that’s clear now.”

  “I don’t want your old boyfriend. He’s no prize,” Lily called from the other side of the shop, obviously not in a charitable mood, either. “Next time I buy ballet shoes, I’ll buy them at his shop again. He’s the only one in town who sells them.”

  Shiny threw an ugly look at Lily and stormed out of the store.

  It took the atmosphere ten or fifteen minutes to calm down and for the customers to quit buzzing and get back to buying.

  Chapter 25

  Lily swept the front room while Molly and Tally tidied the kitchen after closing, then Tally locked up and they all headed out.

  Tally had asked Lily for a copy of the poster they’d chosen because she wanted to show it to Yolanda. Lily had it saved online and was able to print one out in the office, so Tally saw Lily and Molly out the back and she went out the front, heading for Bella’s Baskets. Greer was walking toward her and stopped when she saw Tally.

  “Greer, was that you I saw you in the park yesterday?” she began.

  Greer stopped walking and stared at Tally. “In the park? The park? I don’t think so.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t care if you smoke when you’re not at work.”

  “I wasn’t there. It wasn’t me.” She whirled, changing her direction, and stalked away. The nursing home was in that direction and Tally wondered if she was going there.

  Yolanda and Raul were both gone and Bella’s Baskets was locked, so Tally went home, musing on her way. So much for playing Big Sister and handing out her sage advice to Greer. She’d try to think of another way to approach this. Maybe she’d see them together again. Or maybe not, which would be good. She would be sure to remember what the scruffy, older man looked like in case she saw him with Greer again. If that happened, Tally wouldn’t accept Greer’s denial that she was with him.

  After she got home, she talked things out with Nigel.

  “I have to figure Greer out,” she said.

  Nigel blinked and cleaned his whiskers with a paw, having just polished off his din-din.

  “She was obviously with this much older man. Why would she deny it?”

  Nigel ignored that remark as being beneath him.

  “Yeah, you’re right. I’d deny it, too, if I were dating someone like that. My mother would have a fit.”

  An ear twitch told her to continue that line of thought.

  “Oh, what about this? What about her mother? I wonder if she would approve?”

  The cat’s direct stare made Tally think harder. “Aha. I said I would visit her mother, right? To see if she’s being taken care of. I think it would be best if I filled in for the times Greer can’t be there, but for this visit…well, I think I’ll just go and see what’s what. If Greer is there, we can both visit her mother.”

  She had seen her parents almost every night and she thought she could take a night off. A brief call assured her that they were doing well, her mother feeling more and more healthy and her dad sounding optimistic.

  Greer had mentioned the name of the home, Setting Sun, which wasn’t far. The air had cooled off after dark and Tally decided to walk. As she came in the front door of the place, Greer was at a counter in the small lobby, writing. She must have been on her way here when they met on the sidewalk.

  “Greer,” she called. “I came to see your mom. I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Oh. Tally.” Greer seemed surprised to see her, but smiled. “You have to sign in here.”

  “Sure.” Tally came forward.

  “Wait, I’ll sign you in.” Greer scribbled Tally’s name and the time in the book and led the way down a dim hallway.

  The lobby had held a faint distasteful smell, but the hallway reeked. It was, Tally decided, a mixture of odors, but predominantly the sharp, pungent tang of urine. They passed doorways to small rooms. Tally peeked into them, finding some empty and some holding bedridden skeletal beings who were either on IVs, or propped up in their hospital beds watching television, or lying flat and looking, to Tally, like they were already dead.

  She tried to breathe shallowly to avoid the smells.

  The end of the hallway opened to a common room where wheelchairs were lined up in front of a loud television, tuned to a movie channel. Those not in wheelchairs were propped with pillows in plastic-covered armchairs. Two or three of the eighteen or twenty oldsters watched the television, some gazed ahead vacantly, and one picked at her bathrobe with one hand, muttering something too softly for Tally to hear.

  Greer went over to the woman plucking her clothing. She was so thin that two pillows were needed, one on each side of her, to hold her straight in the wheelchair.

  “Mom, I’m here,” Greer said, putting her face in front of the woman and stilling her restless hand, holding it in her own. “Are you having a good day?”

  This was the woman Tally had seen in the wheelchair outside the apartment when she’d surreptitiously driven by on Sunday.

  Greer’s mother turned her head with agonizing slowness, her mouth agape and her muttering silenced. When she caught sight of her daughter, an angelic smile transformed her haggard look. But only on one side of her face. They other side drooped. Tally noticed again that one arm was held bent against her body. The woman had definitely had a stroke.

  “Greer. Darling. I haven’t seen you in so long.” Her speech was a bit slurred, but understandable.

  Greer gave Tally a side glance and whispered that her mother never remembered her coming to see her. She must have dementia, too, Tally thought.

  “It’s so good of you to come. Can I get you something?” Greer’s mother looked around, maybe to see if there was something she could serve to her daughter. “Who’s this?” she asked when she saw Tally.

  “This is Tally Holt, Mom, my new boss. I work for her.”

  “How nice. I’m glad you have a job, dear.” Her smile dissolved into a worried look. “Have you seen your father? I can’t seem to locate him. He’s gone off again.”

  “He’s doing fine, Mom. I saw him today.”

  “Next time you see him, tell him I forgive him. He can come home now.”

  Greer bit her lower lip, then smiled at her mother and patted her bony hand. “I will, Mom. I’ll tell him.”

  * * * *

  Later, at home, Greer’s statement came back to Tally as she was falling asleep. It jerked her wide-awake. Greer told her mother she had seen her father that day. At the time, Tally assumed Greer was placating her mother by lying. Reassuring her so she wouldn’t get agitated. But what if she had seen him? What if the man in the park vaping with her was her father?

  The man had looked one step from homeless. Or maybe he was homeless. Greer lived in a dilapidated apartment building. Her mother, a stroke victim who see
med to have dementia, was now in a miserable nursing home, presumably on Medicaid. Tally fell asleep worrying about Greer’s family situation.

  It was still on her mind in the morning when Greer came into work—on time, she was happy to see. Tally brought it up before they opened and got busy and before she could forget.

  “Greer, was that your father I saw you with yesterday?”

  “Yesterday? Where?” She kept her head down, getting sweets from the refrigerator and putting them on a tray.

  “In the park. You were both on a bench, doing that vaping thing.”

  “No. I wasn’t. No. That wasn’t my father. He doesn’t live around here. And I wasn’t there.” She lifted the tray of candies and hurried past Tally to go to the front and put them out for sale.

  Tally pursed her lips. She couldn’t help but be angry that Greer kept lying to her. How did she think Tally would believe what she said, when she had seen them? Something was off about Greer.

  She got a call at about one o’clock in the afternoon from her mother.

  “They’ve brought your dad in to the police station again.” She was breathless, panting. “I don’t know what to do. I think it’s all my fault.”

  Tally was more than breathless. She was speechless.

  “What do you mean? How is this your fault?”

  “They asked me some questions and I think I…said the wrong thing. They have new information, they said.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I—I’m not sure. Can you go down there to the station? Can you find out what’s going on from that detective?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll try.” This had to stop. It was bordering on harassment of her parents. What was Detective Rogers doing?

  She told Lily and Greer that she had a family emergency and left them abruptly without answering the questions they called out to her departing back.

  Chapter 26

  Tally fumed all the way to the police station. When she reached it, she sat in her car for a few moments to collect herself. She wouldn’t get anywhere with Jackson Rogers if she stormed into the station all hot and bothered. After some deep breaths, she gathered her wits and made herself walk slowly into the lobby and ask for Detective Rogers.

  Although she had asked for him, it surprised her that he came out to see her at all, let alone to the lobby. He wasn’t holed up in a small, cramped room, badgering her father with ridiculous questions.

  She stood almost toe to toe with him, looking up because he was quite a bit taller, after all. “Why are you holding my dad? You know he didn’t kill Fran.”

  Rogers took a step back. “I don’t know anything for sure at this point.”

  “Do you even know how she was killed?”

  “We don’t have the tox back yet, but it should be here soon. There’s a rush on it.”

  “How can you arrest him when you don’t know how she was killed?”

  He looked her in the eye, then looked away.

  “What did my mother say? She thinks she said something.”

  “She’s been cooperating.”

  “Can I see my dad?”

  “Not right now. He’ll call you or your mother when he’s available. Please, Tally, go home and let us do this. We need to figure it all out.”

  “But you do have new information, right? What is it?”

  He turned his back on her and left the lobby.

  Tally drove straight over to see her mother.

  “They just kept asking me and asking me,” she said.

  “About?”

  “Those blackmail notes. They found them.”

  “They’re old, right? Years old.” Except that new one. “Did Len tell them about the new one?”

  “No, I did. I didn’t mean to. I let it slip.”

  “Let me get all this straight, Mom. Dad met Fran for a drink. In his case, part of one glass of beer. And she wanted to get together with him, get something going. When he refused, Fran told Len they’d slept together anyway. Am I right so far?”

  “Yes.” Her mother’s voice was small as she stared at the hotel carpeting.

  “Then, Len wanted blackmail money. This is the part I can’t understand. Dad…paid him. How could he do that? Why would he do that?”

  “He just wanted to get rid of the man. Your dad thought that if he paid him off, Len wouldn’t go to the police. Len kept saying he would if he didn’t get any money from us. From Bob. I…kind of told him to.”

  “But that’s so damning. Did Jackson Rogers find out about that?”

  Her mother nodded.

  “How?”

  “Detective Rogers came here to question me. He waved the blackmail note in front of my face. I was scared of him. I said, ‘But we paid him.’ And then they went away for about an hour, then came back and handcuffed Bob.”

  Her mother had incriminated her father. How could she?

  “So he took your word for it. Do you think they checked with Len?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But, would Len tell the police about that? Wouldn’t he deny it? What is he blackmailing Dad about, anyway? It couldn’t be for having a drink.”

  Her mother didn’t answer. Instead, she locked herself in the bathroom.

  Tally was going to ask Detective Rogers if Len should be arrested for blackmail. Surely, that was a crime. Why was Len doing this? What was he holding over her parents’ heads? The video of her dad handing money to Len? The long-ago partner switching? That didn’t make sense. None of it felt right.

  Tally was so befuddled!

  When she started to drive home, she was so rattled she almost ran a red light. She stomped on her brakes to miss a car crossing the intersection on the green. The driver gave her a nasty look. She deserved it. After she got safely through the intersection, she pulled over to the curb to collect herself. There, before her, on a telephone pole, was a welcome diversion. One of Lily’s posters caught her eye. Several people walking by stopped to notice it, too. Soon she felt calm enough to drive without causing an accident.

  However, as she drove home slowly and carefully, she felt herself getting more depressed by the minute. All her woes clumped together, like poorly mixed batter, and refused to stay away from the surface of her thinking.

  A shabby, derelict man stood at the side of the road, half on and half off the sidewalk, holding a cardboard sign, begging for help. As her car approached, he picked a duffel up off the ground, lowered his sign, and trudged away. She noticed that his hands and arms were covered with puckered burn scars. The sight brought Owen Herd’s family into her mind. They had to live with the fact that he perished in the fire set by her parents’ disgruntled employee. Did that haunt all of them every day? It should. She was angry with all of them. With Fran, Len, and with her parents, too.

  * * * *

  On Saturday night, when Yolanda saw that her sister was calling, she had a short pang of guilt. She should have called her. They hadn’t talked for days. She walked from the kitchen to her brocade couch and sat to talk.

  “Guess what, Yo?” Vi sounded happy. Yolanda was so glad to hear that. “Eden and I met her parents.”

  “I’m guessing it went better than meeting ours.” She turned off the television. The news had just started and she didn’t need to see that anyway.

  “Oh, Yolanda. I’m so happy about this. Eden emailed them earlier in the week and said she wanted them to meet me.”

  “Did she say who you were? I mean, your relationship?”

  “Totally. I helped her write it. She mentioned I’m Latina. She called me her girlfriend. Then she said we’re serious about each other.”

  “That should do it.” She traced the raised brocade pattern on the couch cushion. Should she say something about Kevin?

  “Hey, listen to this. They had us to their country club today. We
’ve been there for hours. We swam and had dinner.”

  “How nice! I’m so happy for you. They sound like lovely people.”

  “They are. They’re just like Eden. Super-nice. And not at all upset about us being together, or me being part Hispanic.”

  “Did anyone talk about future plans?” Her couch cushions were so stiff. Maybe she should get a new couch. Something soft and more comfortable. Soft and comfortable didn’t describe her relationship with Kevin right now. She kept hanging onto the fact that he was married.

  “Not yet,” Violetta said. “We didn’t want to overwhelm them.”

  Yolanda wondered if her parents would have reacted better if this hadn’t been sprung on them so suddenly.

  Should she talk to her sister about that business with Kevin and his wife? She had to confide in someone.

  Chapter 27

  Tally dragged herself home after work on Saturday. She’d been crazy to think she could keep this up, being open seven days a week.

  That was her first thought when she came in the door, kicked off her shoes, and collapsed onto her comfy couch.

  Her second thought was that the reason she was worn out was because they had done so much business that day. Didn’t that mean she had to stay open on Sundays? The shop was making too much money. She was trapped by her own success. She and Lily were the only ones working every day. Although Lily never seemed to flag, aside from that one bout of sickness. What would Tally do if she got sick, herself? That was a frightening prospect. Should she change her hours?

  August was nearly over. She didn’t want to change the scheduling setup now, during peak season. Maybe September would make a good breaking point to do something different. The tourists should slow down then, she hoped, until things picked up nearer to Christmas. She could try having Lily work five or six days and she could take one or two off herself, staggering their schedule.

  She went over her employees in her mind, refusing to think about her dad, sitting in a jail cell waiting for more investigation, and her mother alone in the hotel. All three of the young women were finally shaping up to be better workers than when they started out. Lily was still the most reliable, but Molly and Greer had stopped taking smoking breaks, or vaping breaks, or whatever they called them. They were both showing up for work on time. Mostly.