Ms. Simon Says

by Mary McBride

  “You mean the House of Beige?”

  “That’s it exactly.” The woman shook her head. “I just don’t know. I’ve been shopping with Shelby, and she’ll admire something in red or blue, but when it comes time to actually make a purchase, it’s forever beige.”

  As he replayed the conversation in his head, he wondered about the wisdom of getting involved with a woman like this. Hell, if she found it impossible to commit to a blue couch, how would she ever make a commitment to a human being?

  Of course, it might already be too late for him to consider being wise in matters of the heart.

  “Dear Ms. Simon,” he muttered. “Help. Shit. Signed... How about Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered in Bumfuck, MI.”

  He was jerked out of his little reverie by a succession of knocks on the passenger window. Shelby’s pretty face was barely visible through the frosted glass. Mick leaned across to pull up the lock and open the door.

  “Sorry I kept you waiting,” she said, sliding into the seat, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “Brr...”

  “I’ve got the heater turned all the way up. It won’t take long once we’re on the road. Where to?” He realigned the rearview mirror, then coaxed the shift into reverse and backed out of the driveway, while she consulted her mother’s list.

  “Well, let’s see. First we go into town and pick up the mail.” She laughed that wonderful, honey-dipped laugh of hers. “Well, there’s some excitement, huh? Will there or will there not be more exploding yarn, sports fans? Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of...”

  “Don’t make a joke of it,” he said, cutting her off, sounding far harsher than he intended, so he softened his tone when he continued. “I just mean that if you make too much of a joke about it, you’ll let down your guard, and that can be dangerous.”

  “I know. It’s just that a little humor helps me cope with this awful mess.”

  “That’s my job,” he said, taking his eyes off the road just long enough to meet her gaze, trying to smile in a way that she’d find comforting rather than a come-on. “To help you cope.”

  She didn’t say anything in response, but Mick was aware of the fact that she’d turned sideways in her bucket seat and was leaning back against the door, staring at him. Staring a hole right through his right temple, as far as he could tell.

  “What?” he asked.

  “What was that all about last night, Callahan?”

  He felt an immediate tightening in his jaw. “What was what all about?”

  “When you...”

  “Look, I don’t want to talk about it now. Okay?” He was still weaving the car through the narrow, forested dirt road that led from the lake to the blacktop, so he decided it was reasonable to blame the driving conditions for his reluctance to speak. “I need to concentrate on the road here or we’ll get wrapped around a tree.”

  “Oh, right. Like yesterday when you managed to go ninety miles an hour, glare repeatedly in the rearview mirror, yell at me, and whistle ‘Dixie’ all at the same time. Now you’ve suddenly got an attention deficit disorder.” She clucked her tongue. “Give me a break.”

  He shouldn’t have laughed. It undermined his credibility. But he couldn’t help it. “We’ll talk about it later. All right? Over lunch. How about that?”

  “You promise?”

  “Scout’s honor.” He held up two fingers, even as he felt as if he should be crossing his fingers behind his back and getting his lies, like his ducks, in a row.

  As soon as Callahan parked on Main Street, Shelby was only too happy to jump out of the car. She’d practically had to bite her tongue all the way from the lake not to bring up the subject of last night. Lunch better be early, she thought as she pulled open the door to the little post office and heard a bell ring somewhere above her head.

  “Hi, Mrs. Watt,” she said, greeting the woman who’d been the postmistress here since before Shelby was born. Thelma Watt had looked about ninety-five twenty years ago, and today she didn’t look a day over ninety-six in a starched blue dress with USPS patches sewn on the breast pocket and both sleeves.

  “Hello, yourself,” the woman replied, pulling her glasses down her nose to stare at her latest customer.

  “I’ve come for our mail,” Shelby chirped. “Simon.” “I know that,” Mrs. Watt snapped. “Now which one are you? Shelby or Beth?”

  “Shelby.”

  “Ah. The know-it-all.”

  “Well...” Jeez.

  Shelby heard a barely suppressed chuckle at her back, and turned just in time to see Callahan wipe an asinine grin off his face. “Thanks a lot,” she grumbled. When she turned back toward the counter, Mrs. Watt was peering over the rims of her glasses again, but this time over Shelby’s shoulder.

  “And there’s your young friend who knows all about the U.S. Mail,” she said.

  Now it was Shelby’s turn to chuckle.

  Meanwhile Callahan maneuvered around her and stepped up to the counter, where he practically saluted the elderly postmistress as he asked, “Any suspicious packages, ma’am?”

  She glared at him the way a drill sergeant might glare at a new recruit, then reached for a bundle of magazines and envelopes, which she slapped on the countertop. “Seems harmless enough to me, sonny,” she said.

  Shelby grabbed up the bundle and headed for the door before she fell on the linoleum floor laughing. “Thanks, Mrs. Watt,” she called out.

  “You’re quite welcome, Shelby. Give my regards to your parents.”

  Out on the street, she leaned against the Mustang and flipped through the envelopes while waiting for Callahan, who had apparently remained behind to chitchat about the price of stamps or recent shootings in postal facilities. There was nothing suspicious in this batch of mail. Just something from State Farm for Harry, and everything else for Linda Purl. Poor Dad. All the bills and none of the glory these days. Maybe that would end this Friday night at the Masque.

  That reminded her that she needed to call Beth ASAP about coming home next weekend. She dug in her handbag for her cell phone just as it started to ring. Beth was calling her, no doubt. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d had phone synergy.

  Shelby clicked on without checking the ID window. “You’ve got to come back here for Masque,” she said instead of hello. “I absolutely insist.”

  “Uh. Shelby?”

  She recognized Derek McKay’s voice instantly. “Oh, Derek. I’m sorry. I thought you were my sister.”

  “You could’ve at least said brother,” he replied, sounding as if he’d already had a few from his flask between breakfast and brunch.

  “Sorry,” she said again. “Are you still back East?” “Yeah, but I’m taking the next plane out for O’Hare. They just got a break there in the letter bomb case.”

  Her heartbeat picked up major speed. “A break? Well, tell me.”

  “There’s a guy at Northwestern. A chemistry major. He made some interesting purchases by credit card last week, including aluminum powder and iodine crystals, along with some other nasty little chemicals. The detectives are on their way to talk to him right now.”

  “So, this guy has a grudge against me or something?”

  “Dunno. I’ll find out more when I get back in town in a couple hours, and I’ll let you know.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Derek. I hope he turns out to be the guy and they slap him in jail right away. I’m going nuts not working.”

  “Where are you, anyway, kiddo? I stopped by your place yesterday to console you if you were upset, and your doorman said you’d left town.”

  “I did. I’m...”

  Wait. Callahan had told her under no circumstances to tell anybody where she was. Shelby went through a quick mental Rolodex of the people she’d talked to since she’d been in Michigan. Beth. Well, okay. That was her sister, for heaven’s sake. And she remembered telling Hal Stabler she was at her parents’ place when he asked, without identifying the exact location.

  She’d talked to Kellie
Carter, too, but had only given the intern her cell phone number to relay to Derek. Phew.

  “I’m up north,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t press. “I’m glad you got my message and called me, Derek.”

  “What message?” he asked.

  “The one I left with Kellie. I asked her to give you my cell number and to call as soon as you could.”

  “I didn’t get any message. I called your Nervous Nellie secretary, Sandy, this morning to get your number. Listen, Shelby. They’re announcing my flight. I gotta run. I’ll talk to you later.”

  He was gone before she could say good-bye. She dropped the phone back into her bag just as Callahan came out of the post office.

  “Ready?” he asked her.

  “Yeah, but wait’ll you hear...”

  He held up a hand to silence her. “Is that my cell phone ringing or yours?”

  “Must be yours,” she said. “My purse is definitely silent at the moment.”

  Reaching through the open window on the passenger side, he pulled his beeping cell phone from the glove compartment. “Yeah,” he grunted by way of a greeting, then began pacing back and forth on the sidewalk as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the line. Callahan’s contribution to the conversation was pretty much restricted to “uh-huhs” and occasional curses that seemed to serve as punctuation marks.

  He was a pleasure to watch, which Shelby did in a circumspect manner from her perch on the hood of the car. Today, in addition to his jeans and sexy black T-shirt, he was wearing a worn leather bomber jacket that looked as if it might have actually seen action in World War II.

  If he was still here next Friday for Masque, she was going to insist that he wear it as his costume. Lieutenant Callahan, indeed.

  Shelby was thinking about what she could wear to complement his Battle of the Bulge outfit when he snapped his cell phone closed.

  “That was my captain,” he said. “They’ve got a lead on your letter bomber.”

  “Let me guess,” Shelby said. “A chemistry student at Northwestern made some suspicious purchases last week.”

  His lovely hazel eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “Now how the hell do you know that?”

  She smiled inscrutably. “I have my sources. Don’t forget I was a journalist before I was an advice columnist.”

  He shook his head. “Frigging leaks between the police and the press. We might as well work out of the same offices.”

  “Half the time I think we do,” Shelby said, then tilted her head and asked in all seriousness, “So, what do you think, Callahan? Is this the guy?”

  “Could be. I guess we’ll find out pretty soon.”

  He didn’t sound too happy with the prospect of an imminent solution to the case. Come to think of it, neither was she. If they caught the letter bomber, her need for protection would be gone.

  Along with Michael Rainbow Callahan.

  For the next few hours while they criss-crossed the autumn-colored countryside around Shelbyville, picking up finished sweaters and scarves for Linda Purl Designs, Mick felt his mood descending into a full-fledged funk. It was probably the first time in his career in law enforcement that he was loath to see a case come to an end. Of course, he wasn’t officially even on the case, but Shelby didn’t know that.

  But right now, worse than having the case closed and his services no longer required as a bodyguard, was what he’d stupidly agreed to earlier—their little tête-à-tête at lunch during which he’d promised—Scout’s honor, his ass—to discuss what that was all about last night.

  Sex, he’d tell her. He’d even spell it. S*E*X. He’d sound indignant and misunderstood. What the fuck did she think it was all about? But that wasn’t going to work because he’d already pretty well given himself away with that dumbass remark about feeling like it was too soon for S*E*X. If he hadn’t been driving at the moment, he would’ve bashed his forehead against the steering wheel.

  Shelby looked up from the list. “That was our last stop,” she announced.

  “Great.”

  “Time for lunch, Callahan.”

  He glanced to his right. She was smirking. There was no other way to describe the peculiar slant of her mouth and the glint in her eyes. Jesus. He felt like a bigmouthed bass with a hook in his gut.

  “Okay,” he said, sounding as if lunch were just any old meal. “Where to? Back to the place where we ate yesterday? That was nice.” And maybe the beautiful lake view would distract her enough to forget about her quest for knowledge. After all, she’d forgotten her purse there yesterday.

  “It was nice, but I’ve got a better idea. Let’s go on a picnic.”

  “A picnic,” he echoed, sounding as if he’d never heard the word before.

  “Yeah. A picnic, Callahan. You know. Outside. Food. Fun. Ants.”

  “I can’t remember the last time I was on a picnic,” he said.

  “Well, then it’s high time, don’t you think? We can pick up some sandwiches and stuff at the little store in Shelbyville, and then I know the perfect little pine forest not too far from the lake. My sister and I used to take our lunches there all the time when we were kids.”

  “Okay. If that’s what you want.” “That’s what I want,” she said.

  And maybe, he thought, if all the planets were properly aligned, if he were suddenly the luckiest man alive, that would be all she’d want and the words “about last night” would never escape her lovely, lush lips.

  Shelby balanced her salami sandwich on her knee because she needed two hands to lift the jug of screw-top Chianti and refill her paper cup. It wasn’t quite the Martha Stewart picnic she’d had in mind when she suggested it, but it was wonderful nevertheless.

  She’d been thinking along the lines of a baguette, some decent cheese, and a clever Bordeaux, but the best that Sneed’s Quik Mart in Shelbyville could do was a loaf of sliced whole wheat, a package of Oscar Mayer salami best if used before tomorrow’s date, a pillow-sized bag of Ruffles, and the five-liter jug of domestic Chianti she was currently wrestling with.

  Their picnic blanket—instead of a Martha-ish blue-and-white checkered cloth with contrasting napkins, or even a dark tartan stadium blanket—was a navy flannel bedsheet, fitted no less, pulled from a stash of laundry in the trunk of the Mustang.

  “Here.” Callahan pulled the heavy glass jug from her hands and handled it as if it were a teacup, refilling her paper cup and then his, before he screwed the metal cap back on and plunked the jug down onto the rumpled blue flannel sheet. “Nothing wrong with Ripple, I always say.” He grinned as he lifted his cup toward her in a toast.

  Shelby laughed. Who ever had so much fun with bad wine, she thought. “Here’s to...”

  She had her cup in the air, ready to toast him, but her mind went blank all of a sudden. Well, not blank exactly. She’d been about to say “Here’s to us,” but that didn’t seem appropriate. There wasn’t any “us,” for heaven’s sake.

  “Here’s to picnics,” she finally said, clacking her cup against his, spilling some wine over her fingers.

  “Here’s to us,” Callahan said.

  Oh, jeez. Was there an us, after all? Or was that just Mick Callahan’s standard, all-purpose toast? Here’s to us with the guys at the precinct. Here’s to us with a blind date. Here’s to us with the stranger down at the end of the bar. Shelby took a small, thoughtful sip of the Chianti, then figured what the hell, and knocked back half the contents of the cup.

  “So, about last night...?” she asked, peering at him over the paper rim.

  He swallowed his wine audibly. “Well...”

  She lifted her eyebrows by way of encouragement. Prompting him to speak. Daring him, actually. “Well?”

  “Okay.” Stretching out his legs, he leaned sideways, bracing himself on a leather-clad elbow. He contemplated the floral border on his paper cup. He took another sip from it. He lifted his gaze to study Shelby’s face a moment. Her eyes. Her mouth. Mostly her mouth. He picked up a pine needle, bent
it between his fingers, then dropped it. Then picked up another one. He cleared his throat.

  Oh, for heaven’s sake! Shelby was on the verge of screaming and telling him to just forget it—please!— when he spoke so quietly that she had to lean forward to hear.

  “I got married when I was seventeen. I was married to the same woman for almost nineteen years, until she was killed two years ago. All... all of this feels pretty foreign to me.” A mournful little laugh broke from his throat and his eyes suddenly glistened. “I feel like I’m in fucking Uzbekistan or someplace.”

  “Oh, Mick.” She could hardly get the words past the lump in her own throat.

  “So that’s what last night was about basically,” he said. “I...uh... hell. I just don’t know how to play this game anymore, Shelby. Shit. I probably never did.” He broke eye contact with her then and stared out through the rough trunks of the surrounding pines.

  She thought that the lump in her throat just might be her heart. It didn’t seem to be in its proper place at the moment. “Thank you for being honest,” she said.

  He rolled his eyes and continued to look away.

  “No, I mean it. I...I feel the same way most of the time. As if it’s all foreign. As if everybody else ‘gets it’ somehow. The hooking up, the moving in, the pairing off in couples, and then doing it all over again when it doesn’t work out. People write me for advice, and half the time I just don’t know what to say.”

  A tiny grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. “I find that hard to believe,” he said.

  “Well, it’s true.” She took another sip from her paper cup. “I keep waiting for the one letter that says ‘Wait a minute. Wait a minute. If you’re so damn smart, how come you’re still alone?’ ”

  He turned back to her now. The moisture was gone from his eyes, but the sadness was still there. “And what’s the answer, Ms. Simon? How come you’re still alone?”

  Because I was waiting for you, she wanted to say. Fortunately, her cell phone beeped from the depths of her handbag just then, and no sooner had her phone sounded than Callahan’s did, too.

  Before she answered, she checked the caller ID and immediately recognized Derek McKay’s number.