Scripted to Slay

by ACF Bookens

  "So Cassandra tried to talk you into giving up your wheelchair?" I found that odd, but I could understand Davis's anger and frustration if she had really put pressure on him to change how he'd decided to live his life. "She asked you to stop using it?"

  He grew still, and his face fell. "Well, no, actually." Then, the anger flushed his cheeks again. "But I knew that's what she wanted. She wanted to take this all away from me to make some kind of point. I didn't need to be part of her cause."

  I started to explain that from what I'd heard about Lizzie, I didn't think she was like that. That in fact, I thought she probably would have advocated for him to have anything he needed or wanted to live his life on his terms. But just as I opened my mouth, I found myself being hoisted out of Davis's lap as another pair of arms reached around him and pulled his arms behind his back to cuff them.

  Against my ear, Lucas said, "You're good, Harvey. Just let me get you out of the street," and he did just that. I had not imagined Lucas of cupcake-baking fame to be so strong, but he lifted me like I was a small child. To say I was grateful for his rescue would be an understatement.

  Once Lucas had planted me firmly on my feet, I looked back to the street to see Tuck wheeling the handcuffed Davis toward his patrol car. For a brief second, I got anxious, worried that Tuck wouldn't know how to get Davis into the back seat since Davis couldn't stand. But I needn't have worried. A deputy came right over, uncuffed Davis, and then the two men lifted Davis into the car without incident.

  Tuck gave me a two-fingered wave as he climbed into the driver's seat, and I felt all the stress of the moment leave my body. Unfortunately, most of my muscle strength also fled with the stress, and I started to crumple. For the second time that day, strong arms helped me, and I looked up to see Max as he got an arm around my waist and pulled me back upright.

  Only then did I remember Daniel had been there, and I tried to right myself as I looked for him in the crowd. I really, really didn't want to hurt him, and I knew that if he got the idea that Max and I were . . . well, anything, he would be hurt. I kept swiveling my head and looking until Mart came and put her arm around the other side of my waist and whispered, "He left as soon as he saw you were safe. He said to tell you he'd see you and Taco soon."

  I felt myself slump against the strong bodies on either side of me and let them steer me back into the store. The crowd was mostly still there, kept inside by Walter and Stephen, who had taken up positions as guards on either side of the door.

  Marcus came in just after me and said, "Harvey, seriously, woman, I'm fast, but even I can't catch wheels at that speed." He dropped his skateboard onto the ground and smiled.

  "You tried to chase me down on your board?!"

  "It was the best chance we had. Luckily, Tuck had anticipated that something might go down and already had cars on the street. Who knows where he would have gone with you if they hadn't blocked traffic?"

  I shuddered at the thought and realized Max but not Mart was still standing beside me. I took a step away and smiled at him as I did. "Thank you. We almost had another black eye moment back there," I said.

  He smiled and kissed my hand briefly before heading out the door. "I'll bring dinner over for everyone," he gestured toward the gathering of our friends by the register. "Give me an hour."

  I nodded and then went in search of the nearest chair, which happened to be the one right next to where Helen Leicht was sitting. Either she hadn't moved during that whole escapade or she'd returned to known ground for comfort. "You okay?" she asked as I dropped into the seat of the wingback chair next to her.

  I nodded. "I am. A little shaken, but okay." I looked over at her and started to smile, but then I saw her face. She was about to break down and was just holding it together by clenching her jaw.

  "Are you?" I asked and reached over to take her hand.

  The tears came as she shook her head just slightly. "That was terrifying . . ." She tried to say more but couldn't between the gasps for air that came between her sobs. "He killed Cassandra, didn't he?"

  I squeezed her fingers and leaned forward. "He didn't say he did, but given that display of anger and what he did tell me, I think so. We'll know soon. Tuck will get his confession quickly if he can."

  Helen swallowed hard and then leaned back against the wing of her chair. "What did he say to you?"

  I kept a hold of her hand but leaned back too, and then I recounted our conversation.

  "He killed her because he thought she wanted to take away his wheelchair?" Her voice was incredulous, and I couldn't blame her. It did sound ridiculous given who Cassandra was in the world.

  "I think it was more that he resented her. He seemed to be projecting his own insecurities about his need for a wheelchair onto her. She didn't need or want her prosthetic arm, so she must have thought she was better than him. That kind of thing." I sighed. "He didn't make much sense, but people with that much anger pent up rarely do." For a second, I found it sad that I knew that, knew that too well in fact.

  "So he wanted her to use her prosthetic because he didn't want to feel bad about using his wheelchair? That makes no sense. Cassandra didn't care if he used a wheelchair." Helen shook her head. "I tried to tell him that."

  I sat back and then I remembered seeing them talking on the street. "That’s what you were doing that night on the street?"

  "I wondered if you saw us," she said. "Yeah, he said he wanted to meet, to talk about Cassandra. I was hesitant. I was having a hard enough time dealing on my own, but he had known her – and I wanted to badly to talk about her with someone who had."

  She sat forward and put her hands on the side of her face. "But when we met, he just wanted to explain how sad he was that Cassandra was dead and ask me questions about her death." She looked up at me suddenly. "He was trying to figure out what I knew about her murder, wasn’t he?"

  I sighed and nodded. "Sounds like it."

  Helen shook her head. "I should have figured that out."

  "Why? You didn’t think he was a suspect. You thought he was her friend. Besides, even if he had said something about why he did it, you probably wouldn’t have understood that as motive, right?"

  Lizzie’s mom shook her head. "Maybe. Still . . ."

  "Did he say anything about your daughter and her prosthetic arm?

  "He just kept talking about how he needed his wheelchair and that he wasn’t ashamed to use it. He wished more disabled people would feel the same way." She let her head drop back and looked at the ceiling. "Lizzie didn’t care, not about her arm, not about his wheelchair. She just wanted people to be happy." A sob stuck in Helen’s throat.

  I thought for a minute and remembered some of what I read. "He did seem to think Cassandra saw everyone with a disability the same way. But she didn't, of course, at least not from what her friends here said. She saw each person as being capable of choosing how they wanted to live."

  Helen nodded vigorously and sat forward. "She did. That's actually what she said to me when I pressured her to use her prosthetic. 'Mom, I know that's what you'd do in my situation, but that's not what I'm going to do, okay? It's not what I want, and this is my life.'" Tears welled in Helen's eyes again. "At the time, I thought she was just being rebellious, but now I see that she was just being strong."

  I squeezed her hands again and then let them go when Rocky brought us each a chamomile tea. Both of us sat back and sipped as the rest of the crowd milled around us.

  * * *

  About a half hour later, Mart came over. Tuck had just called her. Davis had confessed to killing Cassandra. "He's sorry now," Mart said as she knelt by Helen's feet. "That's not much comfort I know."

  Helen sighed. "No, not much. But is it weird if I say I feel bad for him, that he couldn't have more peace with himself like Cassandra did?"

  I smiled. "I don't think that's weird at all. I think that's compassionate." As Lucas and Cate helped Helen to the door and offered to be her escort to the skating event tomorrow, I sank back
into my chair and wondered if I had as much peace with myself as Cassandra did. I doubted it.

  Soon after Helen left, the rest of the crowd, including Cassandra's friends who had stayed to thank me for hosting the wake, left. I immediately collapsed into tears in the fiction section. Mart sat with me while the rest of our friends returned the store to its usual layout and printed signs saying that the store would be closed for the remainder of the day. For a brief minute, I considered reopening as planned, but given that the signs had been made and included a notice about how the coupons would be honored the next day and how exhausted I felt and Marcus looked, I went with the group's decision.

  Max and Symeon came over with several pizzas, a big bowl of their mushroom risotto, a giant salad, and a platter of cannoli, and I found my appetite small but there and considered that a good sign. With a plate of risotto, a symbolic portion of salad, and a cannoli, I returned to my chair in the fiction section and ate alone with my thoughts.

  After I surprised myself by finishing everything on my plate, I lumbered over to my friends in time to hear Stephen say that Mrs. Leicht had shared the contents of Lizzie’s will with him. Apparently, she had left pretty much everything to her mom, except the contents of her storage unit. "She left those to Johns Hopkins with the specification that the prosthetics be adjusted for new users or recycled into new equipment for people who wanted it."

  "Maybe I should have made that information known earlier? " Tuck said. "Maybe it would have stopped Davis . . ." His voice trailed off.

  I sighed. Maybe it would have mattered if he had, but I doubted it.

  Eventually, Mart came and dragged me out the front door after asking Marcus, who happily agreed, to finish closing up the shop.

  Taco and Mayhem were clearly aware that it had been a long day because they didn't pull at all as we walked. I had the sense that all the commotion had been upsetting for them, too. My impression was proven right when, after dropping onto the couch with a bowl-sized mug of hot chocolate, Mayhem broke the house rule that she never violated and jumped onto the couch to put her head on my knee. I didn't even try to object.

  15

  The next morning came crisp and cool, and thanks to a quiet night and a melatonin tablet, I was ready to go for the day. My body still felt like someone who weighed about a million pounds, but my mind was sharp. And I found I was actually look forward to the fundraiser that night. My enthusiasm was matched when, to my delight, I found my mother at the shop when I arrived with our guest speaker, Segarra. She was looking amazing in some sort of thigh-high fur boots, a boho shirt, and jeans that were the dream of every woman with hips.

  I greeted her and shot Marcus a big thank you grin when I realized he had come in early to prepare the store for this visit. Mom took Segarra to the cafe, and I took a minute to stop by the register and speak my gratitude. "Mom talked to you about this already?"

  "Yep, days ago. She didn't want you to worry though, and I'm glad you didn't know, especially after yesterday." He put his hand on my arm. "You okay?"

  I nodded and sighed. "I am. Excited about tonight and also ready for it to be over, you know?"

  Marcus chuckled. "Sure do. You just do what you need to do for tonight. I've got the store. Plus, there's my helper."

  I looked behind me to the front door and saw Tiffany, my former employee, headed our way. "Where do you need me, boss?" she asked Marcus.

  He raised an eyebrow me at her choice of words, and I laughed. "Go to it, Boss," I said to Marcus. "Good to see you, Tiffany, and thanks."

  Mom, Segarra, and I had a lovely conversation over lattes and cinnamon rolls. Mom told her a little bit about what had been happening here the past few days, and I sat and listened intently as Segarra articulated what I imagined Lizzie had been living out. She talked about how disabled people are, first and foremost, people. They have preferences and needs just like anyone else, just sometimes their needs require more accommodation that our society usually gives to an individual, like a wheelchair ramp or the recognition that mental illness is a reasonable use for sick leave. She talked about devices, too, how people prefer different ways of being in the world, some preferring to keep their disabilities less noticeable, some happy for people to know about them. All in all, I came away from our conversation more informed and more committed to the event for the night.

  I spent the rest of the day answering phone calls about the event, fending off reporters' questions about the incidents of the night before, and blessedly recommending a few books too.

  My favorite customer of the day was a little girl named Mila who came up to me and asked, from behind her father's knee, if I had any chapter books about teddy bears. Her sweetness warmed my heart, and I had to hold myself back from skipping as I led her to the children's section.

  Then, I took the slim book off the shelf and handed it to her. "This guy is so famous they've even made movies about him, but," I leaned closer with this crucial secret for any reader, "the books are always better."

  Mila stared at Paddington's face on the book, and then looked up and me and said, "Thank you," before turning to her dad and saying, "Let's go."

  I smiled, and as she made her way right to the register, I said to her dad, "There are some rather unpleasant stereotypes about 'darkest Peru' in there, but maybe there's an opportunity there."

  He returned my smile and said, "Thanks for the heads up. I'll have the globe and some YouTube videos handy." They paid and left, and I felt – as I always did when I helped the right book find the right person – like the world was a little better for my small work.

  * * *

  By the time evening came around, I was so glad we were closing up early for the skating party and pretty sure I wasn't even going to lace up my skates. I was looking forward to drinking some Cheerwine from a bench on the sidelines.

  Marcus and I finished closing the shop and flipped off the sign, and then, Rocky broke her own rule about dogs in the car and let Taco and Mayhem lounge on her backseat with me so we could drop them off at home.

  As usual, my friends and parents had done a superb job of readying the place. The decorations were awesome – total '90s with hot pink and mint green. They'd even put out a table of 90s accessories, including scrunchies and baseball caps with bling. My parents greeted me by the food table, and it took me a minute to realize they had dressed up. Dad was in khakis and his usual boat shoes, but the fanny pack around his waist – not around his shoulders as was cool here in the 21st century – pulled the whole look together. And Mom was in overalls with a T-shirt underneath and a flannel shirt tied around her waist. It was like looking at me from twenty-five years ago.

  Heck, it was like looking at me now. Before we'd left the store, I'd changed into my favorite outfit – wide-legged jeans, Birkenstocks, and a vest over a snug long-sleeve T-shirt. I honestly hadn't been thinking '90s when I dressed, but well, I guess my true self was '90s. I pulled my vest out in front of me and studied it, realizing only then that I'd actually had the tan corduroy piece since college, when I got it at a local church's free clothing room. I sighed. What was I going to do with myself?

  But when I saw Marcus emerge from the restroom with the full-on '90s hip-hop look, Timberlands, big chunky gold jewelry, and a bucket hat, I could not stop smiling. Oh, this was going to be fun.

  I made my way to the beverage counter and grabbed my drink before scouting out the best place to sit. I wanted to be sure to be able to help as needed, but I also wanted to see the skating floor. Plus, I wanted to be pretty anonymous and just stay in the corner. I spotted a small table near the door, where I’d see if Mom's team was flagging and where I could keep an eye on the floor but mostly be out of sight.

  I had just put my butt in the chair when Mart came over and dropped a pair of roller skates at my feet. I looked from the skates to my best friend and started to laugh. "Oh my word, you looked like this in college, didn't you?" I said.

  She grinned. "Pulled these right out of my closet." She wa
s wearing jeans with rips in the knee and a flannel shirt over a Pearl Jam T-shirt with Doc Martens, and her hair was in pigtails. "It's a little embarrassing."

  "Tell me about it," I said, as I waved a Birkenstock-clad foot at her. "I wasn't even trying to dress up."

  She cackled and said, "Lace up. You're on in five."

  Out of habit, I looked at my phone to see the time – 6:55. But I wasn't supposed to do anything tonight. That had been the agreement I'd made with Mom. I needed a night off, and she'd agreed. "I'm not a part of the program, Mart. Mom's got this." I nudged the skates away from me and sat back.

  "Nope, not tonight," she said as she pulled on her skates. "You're not on tonight, so that means one thing – we let loose." She knelt down and slipped off my shoe, making me – for the first time ever – regret my love of Birkenstock clogs. Then, she slid my foot into a skate before putting on the other one. "All Skate is the first one. Let's go."

  She jerked me to my feet so fast that I almost spilled my Cheerwine. I groaned, but I didn't resist too hard. I was a forty-five-year-old woman. If I fell, I fell.

  And I fell. Right away, as soon as my skates hit the slick floor. That was a bit embarrassing, but I was more mortified by the fact that I couldn't get up because I was laughing so hard. Fortunately, Mart sat down next to me for company.

  Then, Elle, the show-off who skated backwards, came over and pulled us to our feet. Fortunately, I got my skate-legs under me more quickly than I had as a teenager when I'd been too self-conscious to try anything until I was perfect at it. A few loops around, and I was skating away to Michael Stipe and having a blast.

  After a few minutes, Mom took the microphone in the DJ booth and got everyone's attention. We all turned toward the small podium now at the edge of the rink and listened as Segarra thanked us for coming and talked about the reasons disabled people needed our advocacy. She told stories about places she couldn't enter because there were only flights of steps to get inside. She talked about people using the bigger stalls in bathrooms to change their clothes when she had to use that one if she had her walker so that she could actually, well, use the bathroom. Then, she asked us to take a challenge: every time we visited a public place, we needed to think about a disabled person we knew and try to see if they could navigate that space easily and with all the accommodations they needed. I not, then we needed to make a point of suggesting to the owners that they make some changes.