Strong Tea

by Sheila Horgan

  “I’ve never seen so many red shirts in one place. Anyway, I asked one of the girls when I was checking out, and she said they were gypsies.”

  “Well, there you have it. Mystery solved.”

  “I’m not saying that the people at the store are gypsies, or that there is anything wrong with gypsies, I’m just asking you to stop being so weird and at least take a look at the stereotypical lifestyle of the fabled gypsy, and then apply it to Gord and Lola.”

  “To what end, dingleberry?”

  “Because everything we ever heard about gypsies when we were growing up was that they were a group, they were very talented in the art of distraction, and they kept to themselves. Had a code of secrecy. Don’t you see how that applies?”

  I actually shut her up for a minute there. Not a miracle, but close.

  We spent the next hour going through every weird scenario we could think of. Any reason things could turn out the way they had. Anything that seemed the least bit out of place.

  We came up with nothing.

  By the time the hour was up, both A.J. and Jessie had become worried enough that they were on their way to the office, and we were all going out to dinner.

  Sometimes good things happen.

  Mom’s voice was in my head. You two girls are the lucky ones, indeed. Such lovely young men to worry for you. It is a blessing you should count.

  When I mentioned it to Teagan on a pit stop in the bathroom so that she could freshen her makeup, she said she heard Mom say virtually the same thing.

  “But it was in your head, right?”

  “Dingleberry, never try to figure out things that are not yours to decipher.”

  The guys were in the lobby when we got there.

  Jessie was obviously annoyed. “Your security guy sucks.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He didn’t even question us, just let us sit here and wait. What if we’d been friends of Gord’s?”

  “Did it ever occur to you that I have a picture of you on file, and we warned security you were on your way?”

  “Well, did you?”

  “No, my security guy sucks. I’ll take care of it.”

  Teagan was gone about three minutes.

  “What could you possibly have done in that amount of time?” Jessie was halfway between scared for Teagan and mad at her.

  “I told him that there was to be no one in or out, and that his boss was meeting me back here in about an hour and a half so we could discuss the problems we are currently having with the lack of protection.”

  “You want me to stay with you while you talk to him, Sweet-Tea?”

  “Oh. My. God. You haven’t called me that in forever.”

  “You haven’t made me feel like I’m gonna lose you to some twisted murder scheme in forever.”

  “Is that what it takes?” Teagan had a huge smile on her face.

  I couldn’t help it. It was too easy. “Teagan, be honest, when was the last time you were sweet?”

  She gave me an evil look.

  I laughed. “See?”

  Jessie acted like I hadn’t made a very valid point. “No. Every minute of every day I remember how lucky I am to have you. I worry about you. Your safety. Your well-being. I’ve come close to losing you too many times to ever forget. It’s just that different circumstances require different pet names. You want me to go over the list and explain them?”

  Teagan turned beet red. That’s rare. I didn’t even want to think about what some of those names could be.

  She sputtered for a second, regained her composure, and then laughed. “You win.”

  “Wasn’t a contest.”

  “Let’s go, I’m getting hugly.”

  A.J. gave me a questioning look. I had to laugh. “When Teagan gets hungry, she can get really ugly. Put the two together, you get one of many, many Teaganisms.”

  “So what do we call it when you get so busy you don’t get hungry at all?”

  “We call that being Cara,” Teagan volunteered. “There’s nothing cute about it.” She laughed and picked up her pace, probably so I wouldn’t smack her, rounded the corner to the parking lot a little too fast, and ran full force into Lola.

  Knocked the pastor right on her keister.

  Jessie and A.J. were there immediately. They each took a hand and helped Lola up. It seemed so gentlemanly, but I know them well enough to know they were taking control of the situation. I heard a cop once say that you need to control the hands, the hands are what will kill you. Either that, or they were helping a woman up because Teagan knocked her halfway to stupid.

  Lola stammered, “Miss O’Flynn, may I have a word?”

  “Sure.”

  “Alone?”

  Jessie shook his head so slightly that Lola might not have caught it.

  “I’m sorry, Lola, but I’m done for the day. If this isn’t something we can handle here and now, I need you to make an appointment for tomorrow. I’m sure you can understand that the last few days have been difficult, and I’ve been working at least twenty out of every twenty-four.”

  “Losing your husband isn’t easy either.”

  “I can appreciate that. Probably all the more reason to make an appointment so that we can sit down and really talk.”

  Lola looked at each of us with great suspicion. Not exactly the body language and attitude I’d expect from a grieving widow, but then, each of the O’Flynns had a very different reaction when Mom was killed. My reaction being the most bizarre, so who am I to judge?

  Lola was talking. “Yeah, okay. I just wanted to know about the insurance.”

  “Insurance?”

  “I was looking through Gord’s stuff. The binder you guys gave him. It says that all employees have insurance. Medical, optical, dental, and all like that.”

  “That’s true… ”

  Before Teagan could finish her sentence, Lola jumped back in. “It said life insurance, too. Three times the yearly salary. That’s quite a chunk.”

  This might have been the strangest conversation I’ve ever witnessed. Poor Gord wasn’t even in the ground yet, and his widow is asking about life insurance?

  Teagan was about to answer when Jessie gave her a look. Being so tall and so close to her, Lola would have had to be looking up his nose to see it. Teagan immediately changed course. I’m not sure if Lola would notice it, but if she has gypsy blood, she sure would.

  “I need to talk to my staff about that, Lola. Human resources would be more aware of any benefits Gord has.”

  “You own the company. Of course, you know.”

  Teagan stayed calm. Or at least she continued to appear calm. “I don’t own the company. I am a partner. Benefits are very diverse in our company. We have many options. Everything from signing up for free legal assistance to all kinds of different insurances to pre-tax dollars being used for childcare. We reimburse for education. I’m not sure what it was that Gord signed up for. I’d rather give you good information once I have it.”

  “Well, it said right there in the paperwork that he signed up for life insurance, three times the yearly gross income.”

  “I’ll be sure to check on it first thing in the morning.”

  “I’m short now. I got a funeral to pay for. How many people you know have the money for that? You have no idea how much a funeral costs these days.”

  “Unfortunately, I do. Lola, when did the police release Gord’s body to you?”

  “They haven’t yet.”

  “Then I’m sure it won’t make any real difference if we can’t answer this tonight. I promise you, I will be on it first thing in the morning.”

  “Be sure you are, Miss O’Flynn.”

  My mother always used to tell us it isn’t what you say, it’s how you say it. Boy, did Lola prove Mom’s point. Something in the tone of her voice was so menacing that I stepped back, and both Jessie and A.J. stepped forward.

  What made it all the more threatening was when the guys stepped forward, all Lola did was smile
. It wasn’t even as if she wasn’t intimidated, which I would be with two guys over six feet tall looking down at me, but Lola looked like she was actually happy for them to do that.

  It was beyond creepy.

  When we got to the restaurant — a little family place Jessie likes — we ordered our food, and then Jessie asked the server if she had some extra napkins and a couple of pens. When she got back with them, he said, “Before we talk about all this, would you please write down your impressions of what happened tonight?”

  We each dutifully did what we were asked. A.J. basically made a list. Key points. It made me smile. It looked more like a plan to shoot images than it did the recalling of a near-traumatic event. Like he already knew the captions he would place under the pictures that had formed in his mind.

  Mine, as you can guess, was the front of the napkin, the back of the napkin, then I had to open it up and write in the middle and make sure that I didn’t tear it while I wrote. I can be a little bit verbose. Kind of like the sun can be a little bit hot.

  Teagan was her normal organized self. She had it pretty much in outline form. She hit the major points — those were printed — and then her thoughts about those points — those were in perfect Catholic school cursive — and even put in little bullet marks.

  I never saw Jessie’s. As soon as he was done with his, he put it in the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

  As I handed my napkin over, I had to make a comment. “What did we do? Create a valid alibi?”

  Jessie didn’t even crack a smile. A.J. gave me a tiny smile, and Teagan just shook her head.

  “I’m sorry, but you guys are going to have to lighten up.”

  “Cara, we are dealing with a crazy person. Did you see the way she looked at me? And I don’t get why she came to my office so quick looking for insurance money. Doesn’t she know that the cops are going to look at that carefully?”

  “Maybe she figures you won’t call the cops.” A.J. shrugged.

  “She’s got to know that Sweet-Tea would call the cops. They’ve been all over this.”

  “Maybe she has nothing to do with it, so she has nothing to lose by the cops looking at it carefully.” A.J. didn’t sound convinced.

  “Even if the cops don’t think she had something to do with Gord’s death, if she was doing anything else that was a problem, then bringing herself to their attention would be a big mistake. She doesn’t appear to be a stupid person, so you almost have to assume that she hasn’t done anything wrong.” Teagan took a sip of her water.

  “Making assumptions at this point could be very dangerous. You, of course, will report this to all interested parties first thing in the morning. You can scan these and put them in the office safe when we go back to talk to the security people.” Jessie patted his jacket.

  “This probably doesn’t have anything to do with me. Gord didn’t get killed because of stuff that goes on at my office. There’s nothing that anyone would care about in it. It’s not like we are hoarding secrets or cash. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  I spoke up. “Okay, you know how when we were little Mom would have us write a story?”

  “You mean when she would give us each a pencil and one piece of paper, and we had to write down what we did. Only rule was that we both had to agree on the story. I still have a piece of lead in my hand from one particularly difficult session with Seamus.” Teagan rubbed the area between her thumb and her index finger.

  I did my best not to smile. I remember that one. It was a major problem in our house. My mom had very few conflicting rules, but that day they all came into play.

  Like don’t throw a punch unless you can take a punch. My mother didn’t believe boys should hit girls, but that didn’t give girls free license to accost guys. There were a couple years there just before high school when the girls were kicking and hitting boys and saying that the guys couldn’t do anything about it. My mother didn’t agree. She told us all the time that if we weren’t willing to take a punch, we’d better not throw the first one.

  That rule, and the writing the story rule, and the rule that if we weren’t getting along we had to hold hands until we could figure out how to get along, all ended up in a melee the likes of which the O’Flynns rarely witnessed. My mother later admitted that she forgot to factor in that brothers and sisters don’t really see each other as boys and girls when they are angry. More like bait and predator. Teagan was usually the predator.

  Teagan brought me back to the present. “No, dingleberry. When she used to make us write a story, the most outrageous we could come up with, using all the facts of the problem we were trying to figure out. She said that when you did it that way, carrying every fact to the extreme of possibilities, it made it clear what you should focus on and what you should let go.”

  “Oh, yeah. I remember. That never worked for me. Once, while I was writing it all down in class, Sister Mary Dominic came over and grabbed my paper and read it to the class. Let’s just say I’m really glad that I didn’t use any names and that planned burial places were vague. She made me go talk to Father O’Connor. He made me take confession.”

  “Your childhood traumas aside, it always worked for me. I don’t want to write it all down, but I do want to hear what you guys think.”

  A.J. and Jessie just looked confused. It’s hard being a married-in.

  I rolled my eyes, but did it anyway. “Fine. I’ll go. I think the most likely scenario is that Gord was actually killed precisely because he worked for you.”

  A.J. and Jessie leaned in. God, I hope they aren’t taking this stupidity seriously.

  I also need to stop and think about why the word stupid comes up so often for me these days. My mother never allowed that word to pass our lips. She said it was worse than a four-letter word. More hurtful. More damaging. Maybe I was saving them all up until she was gone.

  No, she’d still ground me from beyond the gate.

  I took a deep breath. “I think what happened is that Mr. Fisher hired Gord because he wanted help with the computer stuff. Gord was there before Mr. Fisher left, remember?”

  Teagan nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “I think Mr. Fisher hired Gord to hide the computer information that incriminates him in not only major tax evasion but something a hundred times worse. The tax people are mean and scary and all that, but they aren’t going to do anything like kill a guy in the parking lot. I think Honey found out that Mr. Fisher was into all kinds of ugly stuff, and she decided the best way to protect him was to get him out of Dodge, so she acted like a crazy person and got all the trouble going with the porn stuff so that they could make a less than graceful exit.”

  Jessie smiled. “You sure you haven’t been to Ireland?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Seems like you and the Blarney Stone have a very intimate relationship.”

  “Hey, she’s the one that told me to go for it. I’m just trying to shut Teagan up.”

  “And we are all grateful.” Jessie gave Teagan a hug.

  “Keep going, dingleberry.”

  “Okay, so Honey goes fifty shades of stupid, the Fishers take off for parts unknown, and everything breaks loose with Gord and Lola.”

  A.J. decided to participate. I love that about him. Even in the dumbest stuff, he fully supports me. “So, what about the Hooters girl and Lola?”

  “Oh, well, the Hooters girl is actually doing her graduate degree in computer sciences.”

  Jessie smiled. “I didn’t know that Carnegie Mellon had opened a campus here.”

  “Yep, right next to the satellite campus for MIT.”

  Jessie smiled. “Good to know.”

  I continued. “So the Hooters girl was meeting with Gord to walk him through a computer thing that would help to hide the really terrible thing they’re doing. They left the tax weirdness there as a pressure release valve. They figured if anyone found the tax stuff first, they would find out about it because people would ask Mr. Fisher about the taxes, and then
he would know they were close to catching him on the terrible thing. And second, people would be so freaked out about the tax thing — because nobody in their right mind wants to get sideways of tax people — so all other investigations would stop until that was taken care of and it would give the Fishers time to clean everything up. When Mr. Fisher decided that he couldn’t keep it all together, he took Honey, and they ran off to a nudist camp so they wouldn’t be followed there. The IRS isn’t allowed to audit in the nude. I’m not sure about that, but I’m going with it, and had Teagan known there was a good chance of seeing the Fishers nude, she would have gouged her eyes out before confronting them.”

  Teagan rolled her eyes. “That was really helpful, thanks, Cara.”

  “That sounded less than sincere, but I’m not done yet. You started this, so you get to suffer through the whole thing.” I was finding joy in messing with my sister, knowing she was tired and cranky. That makes me a terrible person, right? I’m good with that.

  “So, we have figured out what happened with the tax stuff. It’s just a ploy to keep you off the real stuff.”

  Teagan interrupted me, as she often does. “So what is the real stuff?”

  Since I hadn’t thought of anything yet, even in my far-flung stupidity — see, there’s that word again — I pretty much ignored her. “I’m getting to that. We know that the Fishers were acting really weird when we showed up at the resort.”

  “Not as weird as you were. You wouldn’t even sit down on a chair.”

  “It’s a nudist place, Teagan. The sane person would be asking why you were sitting on a chair.”

  “Because I had clothes on? Because I realize that people wander around in hotels naked all the time, so this one was nothing special? Because I’m not a germophobe?”

  “I’m not a germophobe, I simply have a healthy respect for the danger of some germs. There’s a difference. It’s all in how you look at it.”

  “Only to you, dingleberry.”

  I heard Teagan, but something shifted. Something in my brain was trying to click into place, and it wouldn’t. I didn’t want to play this game anymore. Something was bugging me. I knew I knew something, and I had no clue what it was that I knew or how to get to it.