by Diana Orgain
“Smells good in here,” Brooks said.
I stood, then sat. Panic flooded me and my legs began to shake.
Could I dash back into Gus’s bedroom? No! That would look even worse!
“Come on in,” Gus said. “I’ll make you an espresso.”
Darn it!
The kitchen doorway filled with Officer Brooks’s form. A look of surprise crossed his face, then passed as he quickly composed his features back into a neutral expression.
“Maggie,” he said by way of greeting.
I stood. “Hello, Officer.”
Did my voice sound warbly? A little guilty?
Now not only had I been caught at Gus’s, but soon he’d find out that I’d spilled the beans about Dan.
Gus entered the kitchen and looked between Brooks and myself, assessing the situation.
As they stood next to each other, I realized they looked like complete opposites. Brooks was an all-American guy, with blond hair and blue eyes and an open stance—the kind that said, what you see is what you get. Gus, on the other hand, was the Latin-lover type: dark hair, dark eyes, and an aura of mystery surrounding him.
“What are you doing here?” Officer Brooks asked me.
Gus turned his back to Brooks and began to steam milk at the espresso machine. “She came to ask me about Rachel,” he said smoothly. “I haven’t seen her since Thursday, though.”
My shoulders eased down from around my ears. Gus was going to cover for me.
Brooks looked from me to Gus.
I did my best to keep my eyes wide and look innocent. After all, I was innocent! The worst that I could be accused of was telling Gus about Dan. Could that mess up an investigation?
Gus handed Brooks the small, white espresso cup; he’d made a little picture of a smoking gun in the steamed milk. Brooks ignored the design and gulped the espresso down.
“Thank you, Gus. I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had company, but I’d like to speak to you about something rather unpleasant. Can you come down to the station?”
Gus’s brows flew up. “The station? What’s going on?”
Brooks glared at me. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
Why the glare? Did he suspect that I had told?
I scooped the final forkful of omelet into my face and tried to hide my no-doubt guilty expression.
Gus cleared my plate and loaded it into the dishwasher. “I’m sorry that I have to go now, Maggie. Come by the restaurant tonight. I’ll make you dinner.”
Brooks watched me, presumably assessing my reaction to Gus.
“Oh, Gus. Thank you for the offer,” I said. “But I think I have to work.” I looked at Brooks. “Can we open The Wine and Bark tonight?”
“Yes, my crime scene tech is done. You’re clear to reopen this evening,” Brooks said.
Gus pressed his full lips together. After a moment he said, “A rain check, then.”
I cringed.
Really? Did he have to say the same thing Brooks had said only last night?
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.
The man had made me a superb dinner the evening before, saved me from stumbling home in the dark drunk, and now had just filled my belly with the best omelet of my life, and here I was, completely ungrateful.
“Who could turn down your cooking, Gus?” I said, attempting to sidestep the awkwardness.
Gus smiled, while Brooks’s eyes narrowed.
“Are you ready to come to the station now?” Brooks asked.
“Yes,” Gus said. “Can I drive myself? Or…”
“You can ride with me,” Brooks said.
Gus stiffened. “Right. Okay, then. Let’s go.”
I stood and we marched out of the kitchen and into the apartment hallway.
“Do you want a ride home, Maggie?” Brooks asked.
“No, thank you,” I said. “I need to go check in on my great-uncle.”
Brooks nodded, then said rather possessively in front of Gus, “We’re still on for our date tomorrow, right, Maggie?”
My heart surged.
We were still on for tomorrow and he’d just called our “drink” together a “date”!
Gus flashed me a look, and then I was immediately nervous and felt guilty that Brooks had said it in front of him.
“Right,” I said self-consciously.
What was going on? How had I managed to get the attention of these two handsome men in such a short time in California, when in New York, I’d been invisible?
Must be the fresh air.
Chapter Nine
I walked on the beach toward Grunkly’s house, hoping the salt air would clear my head. Instead, the constant pounding of the tide seemed to increase my headache. It was early enough that only a few joggers were out, but their footsteps were hammering such a steady beat that I thought I was going mad. My agitation grew as I noticed it was a rising tide, and the water level kept getting closer and closer, finally soaking my feet.
It seemed the world was closing in on me.
When I arrived at Grunkly’s, I knocked on his door and waited.
“It’s me, Uncle Ernest. Maggie!”
No answer.
I knocked again, worry snaking around my shoulders. Where was he? Why wasn’t he answering the phone? Had he fallen? Was he hurt?
I extracted my cell phone from my pocket and dialed his number.
He picked up on the third ring. “Is that you at the door, Magpie?” Grunkly said.
Relief flooded me at hearing Grunkly’s voice. “Yes it’s me. Are you all right? Can you get to the door?”
“There’s a key under the mat,” he said.
I hurried to hang up and dig the key out from under the mat, panicked to see Grunkly’s face. A fierce love for him suddenly overwhelmed me. Aside from Rachel, he was my only living relative, and now Rachel was …
I let myself inside and rushed to the living room only to find him glued to the TV. While Grunkly owned many horses, his recent favorite, Winged Arrow, was racing today. The beautiful stallion filled the screen.
I stared at Grunkly, taking in the scene. The architecture of his house was gorgeous: rock walls, exposed wooden beams, and high ceilings, but his housekeeping was abysmal. The living room was littered with stacks of paper, electronics on the floor, and a broken fan. A table had been shoved aside, cockeyed, to make room for his big-screen TV, which his leather easy chair was parked in front of.
There was also a graveyard of old TVs, VCRs, DVD players, and AM/FM radios along the west-side wall of the dining room. Grunkly flat out refused to throw anything out. Even if it no longer worked or was obsolete, he could always find a use for it, like, say, as a paperweight.
“Is that why you couldn’t open the door?” I demanded, pointing to the TV. “I was worried about you, and you’re watching a horse race!”
“Shhh. I have five hundred on Winged Arrow to place,” he said. Grunkly was wearing an old blue ball cap, which I knew he wore for luck, along with a flannel shirt. Never mind the fact that it was already eighty degrees outside, Grunkly was always cold, and now that he was so thin, the problem seemed even worse.
“Hand me that blanket, would you, Mags?” He pointed at a wool blanket that was haphazardly thrown on the arm of the sofa.
I stepped over three stacks of newspapers and crossed to the sofa. I handed him the blanket, which he wrapped over his legs. I looked longingly at the window. I wanted to pry it open, but knew that Grunkly hated fresh air. He’d only tell me it was making him cold. As it was, the house smelled of stale cigarettes.
There was no place for me to sit, except the couch, which was bulging with mail, some flimsy cardboard boxes, and a few soiled t-shirts. I picked my way through some items and moved a few things to the floor to clear a spot for myself in order to sit down. “Grunkly, do you know where Rachel is? Do you know anything about a cruise or her eloping?”
Grunkly waved the remote control at me. “Two minutes to post, Magpie.”
; “Grunkly! I found a dead guy yesterday, at Rachel’s bar!”
He shook his head. “That’s terrible,” he said, in the most insincere tone possible, which clearly telegraphed he wasn’t listening at all.
“Grunkly—”
“Ah ha.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“It certainly is exciting.” He held up a finger to silence me.
I fidgeted on the couch. I knew I had to either turn off the TV and risk his wrath or just wait the three minutes for the race to finish. The bugle sounded and the horses were off. Grunkly’s pick, Winged Arrow, started out strong.
“Go, baby, go!” Grunkly yelled.
Winged Arrow rounded the first lap fast, neck and neck with Zesty Marzipan. The announcer’s voice blared out through the speakers: “Zesty Marzipan is favored to win, but Winged Arrow is making a good show.”
“Go Winged Arrow,” I cried, getting caught up in the excitement.
Winged Arrow lurched forward, pulling into the lead.
Oh my God, Winged Arrow was going to win!
“Come on, Winged Arrow, come on!” I yelled.
Another horse rounded out the top tier and Winged Arrow fell behind a bit, neck and neck with the other horse.
Grunkly stood and shook his fists at the TV. “Go, Winged Arrow, go!”
Another horse approached, and Winged Arrow fell to third.
“Oh no!” I said.
“Get the lead out!” Grunkly screamed.
Suddenly they rounded the last corner and another horse passed Winged Arrow. Then another.
“No! No!” Grunkly said.
Winged Arrow gave it all he had, but it looked like he was running out of steam. One by one, each horse passed him.
Grunkly clasped his head in his hands. “No, no, no!”
“And Zesty Marzipan wins by a nose, followed by Night Runner in second and Daisy Mama in third. Winged Arrow brings up the rear,” the announcer said.
Grunkly slumped back into his chair; his shoulders caved in and he looked completely defeated. “Dead last!” he said.
“Yeah, sorry about that, Grunkly.” I surprised myself by actually caring. Watching the horse race had been exciting, not to mention a stress release, but winning would have been much better—now it was just more of a damper on my mood.
We sat in silence for a moment, and then Grunkly flicked off the TV. He turned to me. “So, how are you doing, Magpie? Any news?”
“Well, yes, thanks for asking. The manager at DelVecchio’s is dead. And Rach is missing. One of the doggie ladies said she thought she eloped.”
Grunkly scratched his chin. At his age, he was pretty hard to shock, but I got the distinct impression I’d done just that. After a moment, he said, “I can’t believe that. Missing? Eloped? That’s nonsense!”
“But I don’t know where she is. I can’t explain it. And worse, I think the manager from DelVecchio’s was threatening Rachel about bringing in the health department … it makes it look like she had motive.…”
Grunkly frowned. “No! Rachel wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Did she say anything to you about leaving? About where she was going?”
Grunkly’s eyes flicked over to the TV’s dark screen. I got a bad inkling that it was likely she’d told him something, only now he couldn’t recall because he’d probably been caught up watching something on the TV. He shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
I felt completely deflated. I looked around the house at the mess and clutter. “Okay, well, let me help you clean up a little, and if you remember anything—”
“Whoa! Clean up?” He held up a hand and waved me off. “No, no. I know where everything is, don’t bother.”
“It’s no bother.”
“Please!” he said.
“I can’t leave you while the house is in such disarray, Grunk, let me at least vacuum.”
He glanced around the floor, cluttered with objects. Of course, to vacuum we’d have to move everything. He hesitated, but I jumped into action, lifting a couple stacks of paper onto the dining room table.
“Wait, wait,” Grunkly cried. “Those are my to-be-paid bills; if you move them around I won’t be able to find them.”
I placed the mail on the table. “Grunk, we gotta start someplace.”
A sour expression crossed his face. He didn’t agree with me. After all, if you live eighty years in a place and all is well, why change anything?
“I can’t let you keep the place like this. No nurse is going to want to work—”
“That’s right!” he said adamantly. “No nurse!”
I flipped through his mail. “Do you need help paying these? Where’s your checkbook?”
He smiled. “Now you’re talking! Leave the vacuum for next time. Help me with the bills. It’s getting so hard to read those things. Is the print getting smaller?”
“No.”
“I think it is.” He shuffled across the room and pulled out a checkbook from under another stack of papers. “I think they’re printing smaller to save paper. Be green. Isn’t that the latest thing?”
We sat together in the dining room and walked through his bills step by step. When we got to an insurance statement, I asked, “What’s this?”
Grunkly took the paper from me and squinted at it. He tried on several pairs of glasses, one without an arm that he had to hold in place, one pair that were bifocals, and then a third pair with black rims. “Ah!” he said. “These are the good ones.”
“If you throw out the other two pairs, you won’t get confused,” I said.
He scowled at me. “Those are my backups!”
“Right.”
He looked at the statement again. “Oh, yeah. This is the building insurance for The Wine and Bark.”
Grunkly owned the building and Rachel rented out the space from him. “It’s past due, Grunk.”
He scratched at the stubble on his chin. “That’s because I was in the hospital. Let’s pay it now.”
The date on the notice indicated it’d been mailed far after Grunkly’s heart attack, but he’d just as soon have another heart attack before he admitted it actually got lost in the clutter here.
We proceeded through the rest of the mail and sorted all the bills out. There were several calculators on the table. Each one had a different company logo, all freebie promotional items that he’d collected throughout the years. I punched the number nine on one of the calculators and it stuck.
“I think you can toss this one, Grunkly.”
He picked up the calculator and put it to the side. “Oh no, Mags, it’s perfectly fine.”
“The nine sticks.”
He fondled the calculator possessively. “I’ll use it for figuring out lower sums.”
I sighed. Getting Grunkly to throw anything away would be a miracle.
When we were done paying the bills and balancing his checkbook, Grunkly looked out at me over his reading glasses. “You know, Maggie, just between you and me, I think if Rachel were in trouble she’d go to Stag’s Leap.”
Stag’s Leap was a cabin in the woods that Grunkly owned. When Rachel and I were young girls we spent our summers there.
“Do you still own Stag’s Leap?” I asked.
He glared at me. “Magpie! You know I don’t ever sell my real estate! That’s for you and Rachel when I kick the bucket.”
I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my cheek to his. “Thank you, Grunk. I know.”
He patted my back. “Do you want to take a drive out to Stag’s Leap and see if we can find her?”
“You don’t believe she’s eloped?”
Grunkly shook his head.
“Me either.”
My shoulders relaxed. Grunkly was right. Rachel was likely at the cabin. She had probably given Abigail a tall tale about eloping to cover up the trouble she was having with Dan. It was just like Rachel to run off instead of heading things off.
“Whatdya say? Road trip?”
“I don’
t have a car.”
“We’ll take the Cadillac!” he said.
I laughed. Grunkly’s Cadillac was over forty years old. “Does it even start?”
“Sure! I turn it over every week. Otherwise, the battery dies.” He coughed suddenly, and his face took on a gray pallor. I realized that visiting with me and paying the bills was taking its toll on his stamina.
“I have to work at Rachel’s bar tonight. Whatdya say I find a ride to the cabin and I’ll report back to you?”
He shook my hand. “Deal!”
Chapter Ten
I headed over to The Wine and Bark early. A creepy sensation was crawling up my skin. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I would find another dead body. I knew, of course, that it was highly unlikely, but the memory of finding Yolanda standing over Dan lingered.
Today the “happy vibe” front door didn’t look so happy with the yellow crime scene tape across it. I yanked the tape off and wadded it up. I tried the handle on the door. It was locked, and I was glad of the fact.
No surprises.
The bar was dark and I immediately flicked on the light switch before stepping foot inside. It was eerily empty, only the hum of the ice maker to keep me company. I tossed the wadded-up tape in the trash can behind the bar and crossed to where Dan had been on the floor the day prior. The spot where the blood had pooled hadn’t been cleaned.
Really? The police had left this for me?
The crime scene technicians must have taken samples, and off they went, leaving a mess in their wake.
I prepared a bucket of hot, soapy water and went to work. I bit back the bile that threatened as I mopped the floor. As I was rinsing the mop, a woman with pink spiked hair stuck her head into the bar.
“Hiya!” she said, entering and approaching me. “Are you Maggie?”
“Yes.”
“Yolanda told me about you. I’m Evie Xtreme. My band the Howling Hounds is playing tonight. It’s sort of a dress rehearsal for the Tails and Tiaras fund-raiser next weekend.”
I glanced at the mop bucket of bloody water and wondered what else Yolanda had told her.
Her eyes followed my glance, and she gasped when she realized there was blood in the water. She covered her mouth in shock, then dropped her hand and asked, “What happened? Was there an accident?”