Murder, Money, and Moving On

by Stacey Alabaster

  But Cathy was having none of my explanations. And I couldn’t charm her into forgiving me for running off. “George, everyone was frantic trying to find you,” she said. “We thought you might be lying unconscious somewhere. You know you can’t just run off like that with a head injury.”

  “Perhaps you could go a little easier on a grieving woman,” I said, trying to get comfortable in my bed. I stared up at her. “I have just lost my best friend.”

  At first, Cathy thought I was referring to a person and that someone had died. “Has there been another murder?” she gasped, holding her hand over her mouth.

  “No. Nothing like that.” I cleared up the misunderstanding. “My dog Jasper is going back to his previous owner,” I whispered, barely able to say the words.

  Cathy dropped her hand, but she still looked sorry for me. “I am so, so sorry to hear that, George,” she said.

  I shrugged a little. “You don’t need to be sorry,” I said, trying to fake a positive attitude. I smiled at her brightly. “There’s nothing you did to cause it.” She tried to put my arm back in the sling, but I told her it didn’t need it. “I’m not even sure it is fractured, to be honest,” I said. “And I’m not even sure I needed to come back here. It was more to set your mind at ease. Please, can I have all my items back now, so that I can leave tonight?”

  Cathy shook her head. “The doctor still needs to do the tests on your head,” she told me. “To make sure there is no swelling. Once you are given the all clear, you can leave in the morning.”

  I couldn’t wait for the tests to be over with so that I could finally escape from that place. But once the tests had come back clear and Cathy told me the good news, suddenly, there didn’t seem to be much point. What was I going home to?

  Jasper would already be back in the mountains near Mornington, with Alice, and his old bed and dog toys and dog treats. His abandonment issues finally solved now that his old owner had come back.

  But what about me?

  It was one thing to escape from a hospital—that was kind of fun and daring—but it was another to be discharged with no one waiting to pick you up. That was a far lonelier feeling.

  The house was so silent without Jasper there to greet me. Or without him there to jump on me, and to run to the back doors, demanding to be let out to get his food. I walked over to the windows and ran my fingers over the indents where his claws had been. If I was ever going to sell the house, I would have to get that fixed.

  I reached down and picked up Casper with my good arm. She nuzzled into my neck a little. She seemed to understand that something had happened and she looked a little downhearted when I put her back down. A little lost without the more dominant dog there to guide her. To be truthful, I wasn’t sure that she would “miss” Jasper per se. She would like having the run of the house and not being pestered by a loud annoying dog.

  But I would miss being pestered by a loud, annoying dog.

  Casper came up to my ankles and started to nudge at them like a cat does when it is hungry. Well, she was more cat-sized than dog-sized. “Oh, right,” I said, looking at my right arm—my dominant arm—which was still in a cast. How was I going to operate the can opener? I grabbed a can from the pantry and groaned when I confirmed that it was not a pull top. Still, I took the opener from the drawer and grappled with it, determined to make it work. When after ten minutes I still couldn’t figure out how to open the can of dog food, and Casper had started to jump around, yapping, I had to do the last thing I wanted and called my ex-husband.

  Adam came over and announced that he was there to rescue me. “It’s just a can,” I said, handing the can opener over to him. “Don’t go getting a big head.”

  As soon as Casper was done eating, she climbed into her little dog bed and went to sleep. I thought Adam would take that as his cue to leave, but he lingered, like he wanted to say something. “Corn chips?” I asked him. I was starving after a few days of avoiding hospital food. Adam shrugged a little while I started to hunt for them.

  “So. About next weekend.”

  I groaned and turned away to find some bowls in the cabinet so that he wouldn’t see the pained look on my face. I had forgotten all about the following weekend. And it had nothing to do with the bump on my head. I had been purposefully putting it out of my mind. Unfortunately, as soon as Adam mentioned it, it all came flooding back. No amnesia there.

  He was referring to his upcoming wedding. Adam was marrying Fiona, a woman that he had been seeing for almost a year. She was perfectly nice, I supposed, but a little bit on the boring side, if you asked me. It always surprised me that she was even Adam’s type. Maybe after me, he just wanted someone a little less interesting.

  Even though I had refused to be part of the wedding party, I had still somehow been suckered into giving a speech, as I was the person attending who had known Adam the longest. That was only by default. We’d gotten married in our early twenties, which was almost two decades earlier. He was looking at my arm and the spot on the back of my head where the doctor had shaved my hair in one small patch so that they could see how bad the bump had been.

  “Are you still up to it?” Adam asked, and I realized my injuries gave me an easy out.

  “Hmm, I might have trouble holding the microphone,” I said, trying to lift my plastered arm, even though I knew the plaster would be off by the time the wedding rolled around. I touched my head. “And I am having trouble with my short-term memory so I don’t think that memorizing a speech is the best plan for me at the moment. Not to mention the dizziness. The doctor told me that I need to take it easy for a few weeks.”

  Adam looked disappointed.

  “I don’t know who else to ask.”

  “I’m sorry, Adam. I just don’t think I am up to it.” I opened the bag of corn chips and tipped them into a bowl. “You saw how I struggled with the can opener. As you pointed out, I needed you to come and save me. But that isn’t going to work at your own wedding, it is? I can hardly ask you to come up and do the speech for me if I start to struggle.”

  Adam shrugged and nodded, as though admitting that I had a point.

  He looked around the empty living room. Jasper’s bed was still in the corner of the room, empty. “How are you holding up anyway? I never thought Jasper wouldn’t be at the wedding. I was planning on having him be one of the best men.”

  I hadn’t stopped to think about how hard this news would have hit Adam as well.

  “Maybe Alice will lend him to us for the day.” But I wasn’t sure whether that would make things better or worse. It might be more painful to have him there for one day than to not have him at all.

  Adam nodded a little. “I suppose I could ask her.” But he said it like he had no intention of doing so.

  “So, what are you going to do?” Adam asked me.

  “I am going to crack open that ninety-five bottle of merlot and treat myself,” I said. “It’s a screw-top, so I don’t need your help with that one.”

  Adam laughed a little and shook his head. “I meant about this case you are clearly investigating, even though Ryan told you to leave it alone.”

  I gritted my teeth. I hated that they were in contact, and that they clearly shared these kinds of things with each other. “I’m not doing any such thing.”

  “Yeah, right.” There was a teasing tone to his voice. “Then how did you get that bump on your head?”

  I cracked open the screw-top and grabbed a wine glass off the top shelf. “I was cleaning the gutters,” I told him. “Everyone is always on my back about it. I thought you would be pleased.”

  “No one is please you slipped and fell. That is why we all told you to clean them in the first place.” He came up behind me. “And I don’t think you should be drinking on your medication,” Adam said, taking the bottle out of my hands.

  “Ugh,” I said, trying to grab at it. But I only had one good arm. And I was actually a little dizzy. When I tried to grab at it, my balance was off. I fell over and
he caught me.

  For a second, my face was right in front of his, our lips only millimeters apart from kissing. And just for a moment, I thought we were going to.

  Adam cleared his throat loudly and pulled away. “Ahem.”

  “Ahem, indeed,” I muttered, putting the wine back on the shelf. I no longer thought it was such a good idea. Several minutes of awkward silence passed by.

  Adam sat down beside me on the sofa. “You’re okay with all of this, aren’t you, George?” he asked, staring at his thumbs.

  He didn’t explain any further. But I knew what he meant. “You mean about you getting married to Fiona?” I plastered a hollow grin onto my face. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?” I tried not to think about the fact that we had almost just kissed.

  “I know that there is a lot of history with us, George…”

  Of course there was. That was why I was giving the speech. Or rather, it was why I wasn’t giving the speech. Somehow, I just couldn’t bear the thought of getting up there and wishing him well so loudly and publicly when he was about to marry another woman. I consider myself to be someone who can easily leave the past behind and someone who can be happy for others. But I was glad that my injury had at least given me a chance to avoid the whole thing.

  Adam told me it was getting late, and he should leave. Before he left, he asked me. “You’ll still attend the ceremony, won’t you, George?”

  “I, uh…” I knew why he was asking. It didn’t have anything to do with any of my injuries. It was because of what had just happened in my kitchen.

  I nodded. “Of course I’ll be there.”

  “And, George,” he added. “Make sure you rest, okay? Don’t worry so much about this case. Let the cops do their job. That’s what they are there for.”

  I nodded. “Sure.” But I didn’t mean it. I knew what I had to do next and it didn’t involve resting.

  Now that I was free from the hospital, I had to figure out what Les was getting up to.

  I was used to walking around town. Since I’d arrived in Pottsville two years earlier, I’d gotten by without a car, aside from the rare few times I had borrowed Adam’s truck. But I’d never really investigated like this, without Jasper by my side for help. Walking around town on my own felt somehow different. I felt exposed, and clumsy with my arm still in the sling. I also felt vulnerable in a way that I never had before when I had been out at night investigating. It was really and truly just me.

  Although, if anything, I was less conspicuous without a loud, yapping dog around to draw attention to me. I had to remind myself of that as I crept around the side of Les’s house, trying to find a good angle to spy from. I didn’t know too much about Les’s personal life, although Brenda had always been ready with the gossip if I wanted to hear it. I knew—from her—that he was divorced and that his wife had moved to the coast, so I wasn’t surprised to find that Les was home by himself that night. I could hear the TV through the window, even though it was shut.

  I leaned up and peered through the window. My short-term memory problems weren’t helping things either. I felt like I had about three different handicaps holding me back that night. I had to get up on my tiptoes to see over the windowsill.

  Even though the TV was on, he wasn’t watching it. I could see him pacing back and forth in the room behind it, the kitchen. He looked angry.

  What was Les doing?

  Darn it, I was on the wrong side of the house to see or hear what was going on. I caught a glimpse of him and was pretty sure he was on the phone. I had to hear what he was saying. I got down off my tiptoes and hurried around to the other side of the house, pausing for a second when the motion sensor lights of the next-door neighbor’s went off. For a moment, I thought I was sprung. I caught my breath again when the lights went off and nothing happened. I crept slowly to the other side of the house so that it wouldn’t happen again and found the window near the kitchen. I almost clapped a little when I saw it was open a crack.

  But it wasn’t quite enough. I reached up and pressed my fingertips underneath it and pulled the window up, very carefully, so that I could hear what Les was saying.

  “Yes, I went to see her. I don’t know what she knows, okay! I’ve told you that. We made this plan together. It’s too late for you to back out now.”

  My heart was racing. Who was he talking to?

  He hung up and came closer to the window to get a glass of water from the tap. I ducked down. But I didn’t see the tree branch and cried out when it smacked me in the face.

  “Hello? Who’s there?” Les bellowed.

  I tried to run. But the branch had gone through my sling, trapping me. When I turned around and tried to free myself, I only got more tangled up.

  And so much for the safety lights from the neighbor’s yard not causing me any trouble. Now all their lights were on and the couple who lived there were standing on their balcony with their arms crossed.

  As the siren and blue lights drew near, I knew they had long since called the cops.

  And there was no time to run away. I was caught.

  Ryan stepped out of the car and shook his head in disappointment. “You just can’t help yourself, can you, George?”

  7

  I looked up and saw clear, blue sky. The sun was shining on me and I could feel the pleasant, warm fresh air on my face. That might have been nice—if I wasn’t indoors and there hadn’t been a hole in the roof. The carpenter who I had called in to look at it was tutting about as he poked at the hole and made it a little worse. I watched the debris fall to the ground.

  “That will be about two thousand…”

  “Dollars?” I said out loud.

  “No,” he said sarcastically. “Goats.”

  I tapped my foot against the hardwood floor. I had already pulled up the carpet. That was unsalvageable. I was more worried about the wood underneath rotting. “And what about the water damage? Does your estimate include that?”

  He laughed a little like it was a stupid question and shook his head. “You’re looking at an extra seven hundred for that.”

  I was beginning to feel faint.

  “You all right there, ma’am?”

  I nodded and said that I would be in touch. He seemed disappointed that I wasn’t asking him to start the job right there and then, but I was still hoping that I could find a carpenter with a cheaper estimate.

  I couldn’t afford nearly three thousand dollars in repair bills.

  Then of course, there had been the stock that had been ruined thanks to the burst pipe. Not much, but at least a few hundred dollars’ worth. It was crazy how much all the damaged yarn and wool added up to. Altogether, I was looking at about four thousand dollars in cold hard cash to take care of the repairs and to replace the ruined stock. Since I had a five-thousand-dollar deductible for my insurance, this was all going to be out of pocket.

  I sighed. I had no idea how I was going to come up with that. I glanced up at the sky through the hole in the roof. At least it was a sunny day.

  Brenda was already complaining six seconds into her shift. And I’d thought it was going to be bad when I thought it was only a crack in the roof. She can always feel a chill in the air, you see. “Boy, it’s chilly in here,” she said, rubbing her arms through her thick coat. Yes, it was. Partly due to the fact that there was a hole in the roof where the cool air was getting in, and partly because I could no longer afford to turn the heat on. Brenda demanded to know just how bad the hole was, so I sighed, walked her into the back, and showed her.

  “As you can see, Brenda,” I said, waving up at it with my one good arm like I was proudly showing off a masterpiece I had created. “It’s big enough to fit a grown man.”

  “Well, when is that going to get fixed!?” Brenda exclaimed. She looked up at it in exaggerated shock. She knew what had happened, of course. The whole town knew. Brenda wasn’t the kind of person who believed in ghosts though, so she wasn’t at all creeped out about coming back to work in the shop.
Clearly, however, she was not expecting the hole to be as big as it was. Lleyton-sized.

  “You’re just going to have to wear warmer jackets for the next few days. Or weeks,” I added in a quiet mumble.

  “Weeks? No, Georgina, that is completely unacceptable.”

  It might have been. But she was just going to have to deal with it. “I can’t produce the money out of thin air, can I?”

  Brenda followed me to the front of the shop, where at least the draft was a bit less severe. “Surely the shop isn’t doing so badly that we can’t afford a few minor repairs?”

  Minor? Maybe if there had been more competition in Pottsville, we could have gotten a better price on the repairs. There was nothing minor about the costs.

  “I‘ve added up the books and accounts again and again,” I said to Brenda. “And I just can’t see where I am going to get the money from.”

  “Give me a look at that,” she said, taking the book from me. She shot me something resembling a warm smile and told me that she would try to add it up to see if we couldn’t cut costs somewhere else.

  I could say one thing for Brenda—she would always be loyal to the shop. And she was doing her best to try and come up with solutions. She told me that we should at least patch up the roof with something temporary, with a tarp or something. I told her there was no way I was getting back up there. I couldn’t afford to lose any more memories. “The ones that I still have are loose and rattling around in there.” She nodded and told me that her husband Tom might be able to look at it.

  I didn’t quite ask, not yet, but I was wondering if maybe she would take a temporary pay cut—just till we got back on our feet. I wasn’t ready to ask her, but I was sure she would agree if I put it to her later in the week. She would probably work at the store for free, let’s be honest—that was how much she loved it.

  “Leave it with me,” Brenda said, picking up the book when five o’clock hit. She always liked to get home in time to get dinner on the table for Tom. “I’ll see what I can do.”