Stuck with a Stiff

by Scott, D. D.

  I hoped Nicky and his mom had a wine cellar, ‘cause I sure as hell was gonna need a few bottles before this was over.

  I remained standing next to my talking bush, giving up on enjoying the gorgeous sunset. Who the hell knew what was going to happen when that fiery red ball dropped below the horizon. I could only hope that whoever had offed Jack Collins had a mighty fine last supper.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  As the sun’s departure sent ethereal streaks of light across the sky, a brisk wind began to wreak havoc on my already chilled bones. At that moment, I sure would have preferred a burning bush to a talking one.

  Normally, in spite of the cold, I would have enjoyed the magical beauty of mother nature in this lakeside winter wonderland. But I just couldn’t, not with all hell about to break loose.

  I glanced back at the house, hoping to see everyone gathered around a warm fire with me out of site and out of mind. But there wasn’t a chance of that either. What I saw instead was Nicky and Liza headed down the hill toward me and my talking bushes.

  “You think your friends are going to be okay with our help?” Kat asked.

  Nicky and Liza were almost within earshot, so I was beyond distressed to hear Kat pipe up again at such an inopportune moment. I thought I even heard her teeth chattering a bit, which meant even if she quit talking, they might still hear the chattering.

  “Little too late for that, right?” I whispered.

  I had no clue where to begin with my explanations. No clue and apparently no time either.

  “How the hell are ya, Lady?!”

  Just as my conversation with Kat ended, my ears were treated to the most obnoxiously loud and grating voice they had ever endured. And that’s saying something. Remember, I live in New York, the center of the universe for over-the-top obnoxious voices.

  This exclamation was paired with an audible thwack of Liza’s palm slamming against the skin between my shoulder blades.

  Damn. And I had a feeling from what Nicky had told me about her that she was just getting warmed up.

  “Bonehead here’s told me all about ya. I’ve been wanting to meet you for longer than I’ve been plotting to kill my ex.”

  She ended that last little nugget of information with a significant wink in my direction. I had no idea how to respond, although that statement made me think that I might actually be able to bond with this thankfully one-of-a-kind woman. Perhaps we could swap stories about our ex-husbands over a glass or seven of wine. And I’d bet my bottom dollar that she was no stranger to wine-infused tirades.

  “Well, thanks, Liza. I’m pleased to meet you also.”

  I held out my hand in a friendly gesture of greeting.

  “Aw, hell with that, Gal!”

  Before I knew what hit me, I was entrapped in a suffocating bear hug. She was incredibly strong, but the most unsettling part of her overly-enthusiastic embrace wasn’t her vise-like grip, it was the feel of her enormous shotgun jammed against my ribcage.

  My eyes met Nicky’s, and he just shrugged. He’d told me on many occasions that Liza was a force of nature, but he was prone to exaggeration. But yeah. No exaggeration on this account.

  As I attempted to catch my breath, there was no doubt in my mind that he’d only been trying to prepare me for my inevitable run-in with this seemingly unstoppable woman.

  After what seemed to be an eternity, she released me and turned to Nicky.

  “If you’ll excuse us, I need to speak with Samantha in private,” she said, throwing an arm over my shoulder and leading me further down the hill away from Kat and R’s talking bushes.

  “Sammy, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but it looked like you were just having a conversation with that bush back there.”

  I started to protest, but she just wagged a bony index finger in my face.

  “You don’t have to explain anything to me. Nicky and everyone else in the family thinks I’m out of my coconut because I’m able to converse with plants, but I’ve never met anyone else who also has the gift.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of this. Should I spill the beans that the talking bushes were nothing more than a subterfuge of the Bellesconi clan who were about to descend upon us? Should I play along with her plant whisperer narrative? Or should I try to deny that I’d been speaking to the bushes at all?

  “I’ve been speaking to plants forever. But it was years before I finally figured out the proper spell so I could understand when they talked back. How long did it take you to figure it out?” She asked.

  How the hell do you respond to that? Shit. This lady really seemed to be off her noodle. And it wasn’t as if she wasn’t going to find out the truth soon enough anyway.

  “Liza, the fact that I was talking to a bush isn’t as important as the content of the conversation.”

  At that, her eyes lit up.

  “I knew it! I asked the plants here to let me know what’s been going on. And now they’ve answered! What did they tell you?”

  This was going to be more difficult than I’d anticipated.

  “They said we need to be ready, because things are about to get a whole lot more interesting.”

  Liza pulled two shells from her bulging jacket, loaded them into her massive shotgun and cocked it with the stoic look of a soldier preparing for battle.

  I was damn glad she was on my side. But I so hoped that when she learned the truth, she wouldn’t hold it against me.

  As I pondered the consequences of such an eventuality, a nearby rustle in the woods caught our attention.

  Before I could say a word, Liza’s gun was raised to her shoulder. A moment later, I saw a flash of light from the barrel, and an explosion like none I’d ever heard left an unimaginable echo in my head.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “What the hell are you doing, Aunt Liza?! You can’t just shoot that thing whenever you hear something!”

  I knew I was going to pay for pointing out the obvious, but from the looks of things, she had more to worry about than what I had to say about her latest stunt.

  Captain Allen came flying over the crest of the hill with his duty weapon out of its holster and pointed right at her.

  “Drop the gun! Drop the gun! Drop that fucking gun! I will shoot you! Drop the gun!”

  It must have been the extra expletive or the warning he’d shoot her crazy ass. Either way, Aunt Liza finally set down her precious Sweet Pea.

  Within seconds, the Captain had her handcuffed and had secured her weapon. He moved fast for a 30-year Department veteran.

  “Sticks and stones don’t stand a chance against my bones, and cops can’t hurt me,” Aunt Liza taunted.

  Her words matched her brand of in-your-face sarcasm, but her voice didn’t have the obnoxious volume it usually carried. The Captain definitely had her rattled.

  I was just relieved that the local county officers had already left the property. I didn’t know any of them or their inclinations, but Captain Allen seemed levelheaded. He struck me as a calm guy who could be reasoned with. Right now, however, he didn’t seem all that tranquil. And I couldn’t blame him.

  “Listen, you crazy bat,” Captain Allen said with Liza in his firm grip, “you can’t just shoot that damn thing whenever the hell you feel like it.”

  Funny. I’d told her almost the exact same thing. But hearing it from the Captain might actually have a better chance of making a dent in her hard-ass head.

  “I should arrest you and charge you with felony criminal recklessness. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.”

  “Here’s one. It’s not every day you find some super secret SEAL team showin’ up in your family’s back yard. Is that good enough for ya?” Liza popped off.

  “Is she supposed to be on meds?” Captain Allen asked.

  Talk about a loaded question. If I answered it honestly, I’d be Liza’s next target.

  Before I could figure out how to answer the Captain’s question without losing a critical body part, I saw an older
woman emerging from the nearby woods in a dripping wetsuit.

  “I can tell you we’re not a SEAL team, but we’re good enough to be one.”

  I hadn’t met Grams yet, but the woman now speaking through chattering teeth had to be her. The under five foot wiry frame sure fit the bill. With her blue hair shimmering in the moonlight and near delusional account of her own abilities, I figured I’d pegged the proper identity on this gal. She was everything Sam had described she’d be and wilder still.

  “Who are you?” Captain Allen asked, his gruff tone making it more than apparent he was in no mood for the kind of high jinks I had a feeling we were about to witness.

  “Since you asked so nicely, Officer Ballbuster, I’m Lucy Weiss, Nashville Meat n’ Three Diner Queen, a better-than-Zuckerberg quant on the side and quite possibly the first octogenarian SEAL Team Mama. But my friends just call me Grams.”

  From the look on Captain Allen’s face, I suspect he wished he had some meds of his own to fall back on.

  I shook my head and looked at Sam then raised my arms as if to invite her to jump into the conversation at any time. It may have been my responsibility where Liza was concerned, but Grams and Company were all on her shoulders.

  Guess we’d find out just how good her relationship with the Captain was after all.

  “Captain Allen, I’d like to introduce you to a few of my friends…,” Sam said then cleared her throat, “…and family.”

  Captain Allen didn’t say a word. He just raised an eyebrow indicating she should probably keep talking as fast as she could to explain all this chaos.

  “You’ve met Grams. And…over here, we’ve got Kat and Quartermaster R.”

  “Over where? Let me guess, we’ve got Grams and now her imaginary friends too?” Captain Allen asked and, for the briefest of moments, smiled.

  “We’re not imaginary at all,” Kat said as she and her fellow talking and moving bush approached with their hands up.

  “Oh my God! They talk and walk! What have I done?!” Liza swooned, then fainted, catching both the Captain and me by surprise.

  Mom, who’d apparently been standing in the darkness behind Captain Allen, knelt down and tried to comfort her sister.

  “Liza? Liza! Come on, Liza. Wake up,” she said as she gently smacked her cheeks.

  Liza’s eyes slowly opened and focused on the face hovering over her.

  “What have I done?” She asked again.

  Mom just shook her head and placed a finger over her lips.

  “You haven’t done a thing. Just calm down, Sis.”

  Liza, however, did not look convinced.

  “Is this everyone, Samantha?” Captain Allen asked, his irritation becoming more clear by the minute.

  “Probably not,” Sam said, looking to the bushes for help. “I’m assuming the others are with you?”

  “What others?” the Captain asked, his weapon still drawn.

  With that, it appeared as if Aunt Liza had either created an entire forest of talking trees or else the entire Mom Squad had joined us, along with Sam’s cousin Zoey Witherspoon and her Italian mob prince of a husband, Roman Bellesconi.

  I guess they’d decided to abandon their posts as pretend trees and join the insanity.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Why don’t we all go inside for some hot cocoa?” I suggested, feeling really bad that I’d blindsided the Captain with the arrival of my cozy family.

  “And brandy too, I hope. That freakin’ lake water has me just about frozen solid,” Grams said, ice crystals dangling from her wet blue hair.

  “Do you think you could remove Liza’s handcuffs?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” Captain Allen said still unwilling to holster his revolver.

  He had an edge to his voice suggesting that perhaps never removing the handcuffs was still an option.

  “That’s probably a wise choice,” Nicky said.

  Using only one arm, the Captain lifted up Liza and steadied her on her still wobbly legs.

  “Let’s go, folks. And you can leave your shrubbery behind,” he said. His tone left no chance of anyone misinterpreting the fact that he meant business.

  Captain Allen watched the wetsuit-clad crew pass on their way up the hillside.

  While he watched, I counted. Yep. All of ‘em I expected to be there were there, except for my cousin Zoey’s parents, and that was a good thing. I had eight well-meaning crazies to account for. That was more than enough.

  “Would it be alright if I went ahead and put away this shotgun?” Nicky asked the Captain.

  Finally holstering his own gun, Captain Allen shook his head without saying a word then bent down to retrieve Sweet Pea. With skilled hands, he opened the break-action, removed the shells from both barrels and shoved them into his coat pocket before snapping it shut again.

  I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the eerie clicks and snaps of handling guns. Growing up in my family, you’d think that would be no big deal. But I preferred to keep all the weapons on the pages of Nicky’s books.

  Both shells were spent. No wonder it had been so damn loud. She’d fired both barrels at once.

  Maybe Liza really did need to be on medication. I should probably speak with Nicky or his mother about her mental history.

  Even if he didn’t have to deal with Nicky’s Aunt Liza, after I got done filling in the Captain on my crazy crew, he might need to go on meds himself.

  • • •

  “Perhaps we should start with one of those cool whiteboards they use on TV,” Grams suggested.

  We hadn’t been crammed around the fire place in the lake house’s living room for more than fifteen minutes before she attempted to take control of the scene.

  Each of the scuba nuts were drying off with towels that Nicky’s mom had given them while hot tea and cocoa were making the rounds. I was glad to see they’d taken Grams’ suggestion and offered brandy.

  “Actually that’s not a bad idea,” Captain Allen said, sarcasm getting the best of him, “if we were in a bull pen working a murder investigation.”

  And oh yes, the second part of his response came out anything but complimentary.

  “I’ve always been told I’m one helluva bull in a china shop,” Grams said then laughed.

  Too bad she was the only one laughing. There were a lot of throats clearing and mild coughs, and I doubt it was because we were all coming down with colds.

  “Excuse me, Sir,” Lily Vaughn spoke up, “but we are working a murder investigation.”

  Lily was probably the least crazy of the Mom Squad Members. A Fifth Avenue divorcee who was the mom of my cousin Zoey’s best friend Roxy, Lily Vaughn was one tough, but level-headed woman. A jujitsu expert, she could hold her own in an argument, verbal or otherwise.

  “What do you mean we are working?” Captain Allen asked. “My Department is working one, but everyone in this room? I don’t think so.”

  The Captain looked at me for confirmation, but I wasn’t gonna be able to help him out on that point.

  “Actually, Captain,” I said, sweetening my voice with so much raw sugar that I almost made myself sick, “you could say that all of us are working Nicky’s case.”

  Since I’d opened the gates, I knew I should probably just keep charging right on through, even though I knew there was a good chance they’d swing back and hit me in the ass.

  “I think you’ll find that my family can really help you and your department expedite this case.”

  “How so, Samantha? How is it that all these, not to offend any of you, but let’s just say non-professionals, can be of any help?”

  “Well…probably because non-professionals is a relative term, Captain,” I said, looking straight at him, trying to determine where to go next.

  “I think I can help explain.”

  Roman stepped up, somehow still managing to look very regal despite the diving gear he was wearing.

  “I’m Prince Roman Bellesconi of Italy. This is my grandfather King V
ito, my grandmother Queen Veruschka, our Quartermaster R, my wife Princess Zoey and our staff.”

  The Captain took a long pull from his cocoa and never said a word, indicating with his expression that he was at least somewhat open to hearing more.

  “Sam, who’s Zoey’s cousin, called us. She thought that, with our connections, we could provide valuable resources that might assist in saving Mr. Blane from this unfortunate situation.”

  “And what kind of connections would those be?” Captain Allen asked, not in a rude or dismissive way but in a very direct, keep talking manner.

  “I’m sure your street smarts can help you figure out this one,” Grams piped in, totally unable to shut her mouth for longer than a few minutes at a time. “The Bellesconis are Italian royalty. Who rules Italy? Uhm, yeah…that would be the mob, my new friend.”

  This time, we all joined the Captain in choking on our cocoa or tea.

  While Captain Allen choked, he looked back at me. I wiped my mouth with my napkin and offered up the tiniest of smiles.

  “So…how ‘bout a whiteboard, Nicky?” I asked, hoping like hell he kept one here at the lake house too.

  Nicky nodded and left the room.

  He and I liked to use whiteboards to plot out the cases in his bestselling books. I never would have guessed we’d be using one to keep him out of prison.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I used the excuse of grabbing the whiteboard to put in a a quick call to my future brother-in-law.

  “Sergeant Weedley, here.”

  The fatigue in his voice was unmistakable.

  “Hi, Todd. Listen. I don’t know what you’re in the middle of there, but I think you might want to get up here to the lake house. I’m sure you heard about that business with Napoleon, but that’s not the half of it.”

  “As you might well imagine, things are a little hectic around here too, Nick. What is it now?”