Going Through the Notions (A Deadly Notions Mystery)

by Price, Cate

  “That was the worst part. The stuff you heard, that you couldn’t do much to change. The abuse, the neglect. But I was determined to help Julio. To help him get financial aid and go to college, if that’s what he wanted. To me, teaching was also about making a difference in students’ lives by showing them other options. A way out of the cesspool they were born into.”

  I drained the last of my second martini.

  “After that he fell in with the wrong crowd. Ignored his old friends, which was a big red flag. One day after school, I went to the convenience store where he worked. He used to be tired in class because he worked nights, but the kid behind the counter said he’d quit.

  “I finally tracked him down at the basketball court. ‘Are you okay, Julio?’ I asked him. ‘What’s going on with you?’

  “He threw a rock against the fence and it pinged against one of the metal posts.

  “‘Nothing,’ he said.

  “‘Come on,’ I replied. ‘You’re not talking to the kids at McDonald’s now, you know. This is the all-seeing, all-knowing Mrs. B.’

  “That brought a small smile, but it quickly disappeared. ‘My mother’s knocked up again.’

  “‘By the same guy who trashed the book?’ I asked, but he wouldn’t look at me. Said he didn’t know. Then I told him I’d heard he wasn’t working at Mo’s anymore, and asked if he was doing okay for money.’

  “‘Don’t you worry about me, Mrs. B,’ he said. Then he pushed up to his feet. ‘Gotta go. See ya.’

  “But I did worry about him. And that afternoon I followed him. To a pretty bad section of town where there was an abandoned movie theater.

  “He turned down an alleyway and slipped inside. I waited a minute, and then swallowing my misgivings, I followed. I caught a glimpse of him heading up a stairway next to the old concession area.

  “There was no electricity, and no lights were on because the place had been abandoned for years. I could hardly see where I was going as I crept up the stairs after him. Turns out I’d walked into a drug deal gone bad. Even now I don’t know the details except that all of a sudden one of the guys pulled out a gun. I looked into his eyes and knew I was going to die. I knew he was going to pull the trigger and he wouldn’t care.”

  Eleanor sucked in a breath, but I didn’t look at her now. I stared at the plain gray wall behind her until the elegant living room faded away and I was back in that red-carpeted hallway that stank of cat urine and mold and fear.

  “Julio was there, at the top of the stairs, but so was a group of other guys, and they didn’t look happy with him. Something about selling them some bad shit.

  “Julio saw me and whispered, ‘What the hell are you doing here, Mrs. B?’

  “‘What are you doing here?’ I touched his arm.

  “Suddenly one of them stepped forward out of the dark, turning a gun that had been pointed in Julio’s direction toward me.

  “I froze, heart thudding in my chest, as I stared into that dark, expressionless face. ‘Who’s this, Julio? What’s going on?’ I knew we were in serious trouble, but I wasn’t giving up. I wasn’t leaving there without him.

  “‘Go! For God’s sake, go.’ Julio gave me a desperate push. Startled, I stumbled backward toward the stairs, losing my footing on the first step. Shots and laughter ricocheted off the walls as I crashed and tumbled down the whole long endless flight.

  “At the bottom I lay there, barely breathing, sure that I’d broken my back. I looked up and watched Julio get shot, point blank, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. I saw the blood spread across his stomach, and felt mine, and knew that I’d lost the baby. I couldn’t save either one of them.”

  I wiped at my face, surprised to find it soaked with tears.

  Wordlessly, Eleanor handed me a cocktail napkin. Her eyes were fixed on me, full of compassion. Jasper scrambled to his feet, planted his paws on my knees, and stretched up to lick the salty tears from my face.

  “Okay, okay, boy.” I petted his head and encouraged him to sit. “Someone must have heard the shots and called 911. It’s a bit fuzzy after that until I woke up in the hospital.”

  “And the baby?”

  I closed my eyes for a second. “I didn’t lose her right away. Not until a few days later. The doctors couldn’t be sure the experience and resulting shock are what caused it, but Joe was convinced.”

  Every time I tried to bring up the subject, Joe’s face would harden. Daisy, don’t defend that son of a bitch who killed our baby.

  “I tried to explain that Julio never meant to hurt me. He didn’t exactly push me down the steps. I tripped and fell. He was trying to save me. Joe didn’t look at it that way, though. He refused to ever talk about it again. And so I never did. With anyone.”

  Eleanor cleared her throat. “Daisy, thank you for sharing your story with me.”

  “I’m not sure why I suddenly did tonight.”

  “Vodka. It’s the great truth serum. Next lesson is absinthe, but not now.”

  I managed a watery chuckle. “Oh, jeez, Eleanor.”

  “Did they ever catch the guys who did it?”

  I shook my head. “I tried to give them a description, but I guess I was focused more on the gun than the guy who was holding it. And after Julio was killed, I shut my eyes and lay as still as possible so they would think I was dead, too.”

  Eleanor poured the last of the contents of the shaker into my glass.

  “It was funny—I’d faced down the gun and survived—but afterwards I fell apart. I started having nightmares, waking up in the middle of the night screaming, jumping at shadows. I got a new job in a better school district, but it took me years to stop looking over my shoulder. And could I have done more to save Julio? The lack of an adequate answer to that question has haunted me ever since.”

  I blessed the fact that Eleanor didn’t try to come up with a reassuring response. She looked years younger in the soft light from the table lamps, her body lithe and trim in her casual yoga wear.

  I took another tart, fiery swallow of vodka to give me the fuel to finish the story. “It took years to get pregnant again. I was thirty-two when I had Sarah and it was a difficult birth. After that, Joe and I considered adoption, but we were both busy with our jobs, and I had my ‘kids’ in my classes to take care of. I guess you can see now why I spoil Sarah. I’ve always been so afraid of losing her, too.”

  Eleanor shook her head. “We all have pain in our lives, Daisy. There’s nothing to be done about the past, but we can fix the present. How old is Sarah now?”

  “Twenty-six.” I felt the warm weight of Jasper’s head on my knee.

  “Exactly. Time to start dealing with her own bumps in the road. Sarah acts laid-back, but she worries, too, you know. Everybody does. Her nonchalance is her way of trying to show that things don’t bother her. But she’s going to be fine. You can let go a little. And she’ll still love you.”

  “Okay,” I sighed.

  I knew Eleanor had her own demons. Not only the brutal high school years, but rumors of an engagement that ended when her beau was killed at the very end of the Vietnam War. She deserved her own three-martini session, but I was too far gone to handle it tonight.

  I put Jasper’s leash back on and we both said a fond farewell to Eleanor. Me with a hug, and Jasper with a long, wet kiss on the mouth.

  Eleanor laughed as she wiped her lips. “You know, dogs live in the moment, Daisy. We can all learn a lesson from that.”

  Moonlight illuminated her garden as we walked outside, and now it was revealed in all its magical, romantic glory—the bright white mounds of the impatiens, the gray of the hostas, the silver of the velvety lamb’s ears. As I closed the gate behind me and the dog, I brushed against some heliotrope, and its fragrant vanilla scent was a sweet finale.

  Jasper seemed to know the way home and pulled me all the way there. Thank God I had his leash to hold on to, to keep me upright.

  I’d always known that Eleanor was the right one to hea
r my story. Martha would have enfolded me in a huge hug after the first sentence, unable to bear my pain. Eleanor had let me walk through a tunnel of fire and waited patiently for me to come out on the other side.

  I was drunk, tired, and my makeup was no doubt a complete mess, but I felt better than I had in a long time.

  When I stumbled in the front door of our house, Joe was there in an instant, his arms crossed. “Where the hell have you been, Daisy? I was just about to send out a search party.”

  “I stopped at Eleanor’s. We had a drink together and—”

  “Are there no phones at Eleanor’s house?”

  I opened my mouth and closed it again.

  “Next time, please do me the courtesy of calling to let me know. Try to be more considerate in the future.”

  And with that stiff declaration, he stalked off upstairs, leaving me standing open-mouthed. Wasn’t I always the considerate one? The one who always worried about everyone else except myself? I would have gone after him to give him a piece of my mind, except the wide flight of stairs wavered in front of me and I thought better of it.

  I went into the library, collapsed on the couch, and covered myself with an afghan. Jasper flopped down on the rug by my side.

  For the first time in my married life, I didn’t sleep with Joe.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next morning, a pack of elves were standing inside my head, apparently trying to carve my brain into some kind of modern sculpture with a thousand tiny ice picks. I groaned, but didn’t dare turn over. Jasper’s tail banged against the floor, but he didn’t get up either.

  I didn’t want to go to the store. I didn’t want to worry about Angus or Sarah or anyone else for that matter. I didn’t want to do a damn thing except lie there and moan.

  After about ten minutes of this, I finally hauled myself upright and headed for the bathroom.

  Joe was walking out of the steam-filled room in his shorts, all freshly showered and shaved. “Everything okay, Daisy?”

  “Yes, fine,” I mumbled.

  “I thought I’d go and pick out some new hardwood for the kitchen today. That old wood floor is in such bad shape, it’s not worth refinishing.”

  “Okay.” I leaned against the door frame.

  “And while I’m at it, I may as well replace the cabinets, too.”

  Oh, God. I can’t deal with this right now.

  “Fine.”

  And that was it. He walked past me and jogged downstairs.

  It wasn’t fine, of course. Not by a long shot. I had a sudden urge to take Jasper and just jump in the car and drive. Maybe we’d end up in Maine, in a tiny cottage on a deserted beach somewhere, with only the seagulls for company. I’d throw sticks for him into the water, and we’d walk for miles with no one to bother us.

  Even in my wild imaginings, though, my practical brain wouldn’t let me be. Where would I get coffee in the morning? Would there be a supermarket nearby? Would Jasper get lonely without other dogs or people to play with?

  Oh, for God’s sake, Daisy. You may as well get ready for work.

  At the Last Stop Diner, I ran in to get coffee for Cyril. It was becoming a habit to stop and see him each morning before I went to the store. People tended to ignore him because of his grubby appearance and off-putting manner, but he had a quirky way of looking at the world that I appreciated.

  The diner was housed in an old trolley car that sat askew on the grass at the corner of Main Street and Grist Mill Road, as if it had simply run out of track. It was painted red on the bottom, with a cream-colored top half and a chrome roof. Inside, the black and white checkered floor, fat round stools, and red leather booths were classic diner décor. A small green building constructed behind the trolley car held the kitchen, storage area, and bathrooms, but it was still tight quarters inside.

  The waitress on duty was Carla, who, in addition to being Jimmy’s girlfriend, according to Patsy, was a bit of an alley cat, a party girl who often showed up for her shift late or hungover. She wore thick dark blue eyeliner all the way around her eyes, and her overly bleached hair looked as though she’d thrown it up into a ponytail without combing it first.

  “Patsy’s not here today?” I asked.

  “She went on a field trip with her kid’s school or something.” Carla leaned against the counter next to a cake stand, her skin a strange off-white, making the heavy eye makeup seem even more garish.

  “Are you okay?”

  She held up a finger. “Be right back,” she mumbled before dashing off, a hand over her mouth.

  Five minutes later, when she hadn’t come back, I wondered if I could pour some coffee for myself and leave a couple of dollars on the counter.

  Some of the other customers were getting restless, too.

  I sighed. I’d better go see if she was all right.

  I walked down to the end of the old trolley car and through the swinging door. I grimaced at the sound of someone throwing up in the bathroom. I took a few deep breaths to steady my own undulating stomach. The one thing I couldn’t deal with at school was kids getting sick, and I certainly wasn’t in the best shape to handle it today.

  “Carla?”

  There was no response so I finally pushed the door open. She was sitting on the floor of the ladies’ room, leaning back against the wall. I wet a paper towel in cold water and pressed it against her forehead.

  “Rough night?” I could certainly sympathize. In fact, it was quite possible I was still drunk.

  “No. Worse than that.”

  I stared at her. “You’re pregnant?”

  Oh, God. And this was the waitress Jimmy had been cheating with. I felt nauseous myself as the truth hit me. “With Jimmy’s baby?” I whispered.

  She glanced at me in surprise. “Yes. At least I think so . . .”

  I sank into a crouched position next to her. “You can’t be sort of pregnant—either you are, or you aren’t. Let’s get you tested.”

  “No, wait, I mean I know I’m having a baby, just not exactly sure whose it is.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” I murmured.

  “It could be my crazy ex who’s the father. I split up with him, though. Couldn’t take his jealousy.” She laughed ruefully. “He had good reason, as it turns out.”

  When I couldn’t take the squatting anymore, I straightened up, my knees cracking in protest.

  What a mess.

  I left Carla in the bathroom freshening her makeup, and drove the short distance to the salvage yard, pondering the situation.

  Did Carla’s crazy ex know she was pregnant? Did he kill Jimmy in a jealous rage?

  A new pile of hubcaps teetered next to the main gate and there was a Sinclair Dino gasoline pump that I hadn’t seen before. It scared me that I was able to pick out anything new in the mess of tools, bicycles, chairs, sinks, gas and oil signs, and tires.

  “You!” Cyril pointed at me as I got out of the car. “Yer late.”

  I kicked at a rusty oil drum. “It couldn’t be helped. Oh, and you need to make tea for us this morning. Problem at the diner. Ran out of coffee.”

  Cyril rolled his eyes. “I got summat to show you anyways. Come here, you.”

  I trudged after him into his office.

  “See it?” He nodded toward something in the room.

  All I could see was a gray metal desk, a filing cabinet, a Hamm’s Beer motion clock, a sign that said, CASH OR CHECKS ONLY, and a colorful array of battered license plates on the back paneled wall.

  Why did one filthy, crusty old man make me feel so stupid?

  I shook my head. “What?”

  He gestured impatiently toward a five-gallon glass jar in the corner. It was almost full. “That’s what ah’ve collected walking around town. A penny here, a dime there. It adds up. You need to keep yer eyes open for the things that most people miss.”

  Cyril, the born scavenger. But he had a point. How many people bothered to stop and pick up a penny these days?

  “Ah’ll go make the
bloody tea.” He stomped off into the back room.

  I stared at the jar of change, which must have been worth a few hundred dollars. What would a scavenger notice that other people wouldn’t?

  Things on the ground, things out of place, things hidden from the casual observer.

  I wandered over to the wall with the license plates. It seemed as though he had one from every state. The rolling motion beer clock was mesmerizing, and I watched the sun set over the lake scene a few times before I finally sat down in one of the chairs in front of the desk. There was a rectangular tin with a picture of Queen Elizabeth II on the lid.

  I lifted it an inch and gasped. Chocolate toffee bars. My most favorite of Martha’s treats.

  I jumped as Cyril suddenly reappeared. “Um—I was admiring your biscuit tin here. Don’t suppose you’d consider selling it?”

  He slammed a mug down on the desk in front of me.

  I gritted my teeth. If anyone had the right to an attitude, it was me. Those were my favorite treats after all. “What’s the problem, Cyril? You seem out of sorts today.”

  He didn’t answer, but glanced at his crossword puzzle. I grinned as realization sunk in. He was crabby because he hadn’t been able to finish it before I arrived. There was even a thesaurus sitting next to the newspaper. I took a sip of the tea. It was as full-bodied and sweet as I remembered. “Thanks. This is delicious.”

  His lips turned up slightly. “It’s what we call builder’s grade tea in England. Strong enough to put hair on yer chest.”

  A black shadow flew past my shoulder and landed on the desk.

  “Hey!” I ducked too late and liquid splashed over the side of my mug. I shook the drips off my hand onto the floor. “What the—”

  “This is His Nibs, or Nibs for short.” Cyril had a real smile now as he petted the cat that nudged up against its owner and regarded me with dark yellow eyes.

  Somehow I’d never pictured Cyril taking care of anything or anyone else.

  There you go, jumping to conclusions again, Daisy Buchanan. A real detective would look at all the facts . . .

  With that, my thoughts spun back to Angus. “Damn, I just wish I could figure this whole murder thing out and get Angus off the hook. I have the feeling that the answer is right in front of me, but I can’t see it.”