Eye Spy (Liza Radley Housewife Detective Chronicles)

by Jenna Mattison

  “It was definitely a…strong, passionate feelings at first sight, that’s for sure,” I say as I kick him under the table.

  Barely missing a beat, he continues. “Will you please get my lovely bride an order of your famous calamari, Theresa?”

  She regards me with a mixture of curiosity and mild annoyance. “Sure, my pleasure.”

  I give Jack another kick under the table as she prances away. “Thanks a lot. She’s totally going to spit in my food now. What’s with the ruse anyway?”

  Jack lets out a chuckle. “Ruse, that’s quite a hoity-toity word. So, I figure it this way. If we’re becoming real detectives we’ll have to assume new identities. I just think being ‘married’ could explain away lots of stuff.”

  Contemplating his explanation, I nod. “I suppose, but let’s not confuse the fact that it’s just an act, shall we?”

  “We shall not, Liza, my darling sweet,” he replies in an affected Lance Romance voice.

  Theresa is back at the table now, and even though she’s eyeing Jack like he’s the main course, she’s carrying a plate brimming with fried calamari drizzled with a tasty looking, salmon-colored sauce, so I’m happy to see her regardless.

  As I munch the fried tentacles that taste like fattening pieces of heaven, Jack orders our entrees. Theresa takes the menus, and he gives her a wink and a dazzling smile. She lets out a giggle and saunters away. I feel the blood rush to my head.

  Jack glances at me as I take a big gulp of wine. “Liza, are you alright?”

  “I’m fine.” Big gulp. “Okay, actually, I’m not fine. I want you to know one thing, bucko. If we were married—which thank God we’re not—that little flirty pants thing you just did with little Miss Lolita over would not fly for a nanosecond.”

  Jack smirks and says in a low, hushed voice. “I think my lovely wifey dear may be a bit jealous.”

  I down the remainder of my wine. “Don’t flatter yourself, okay. It’s just a respect thing. If we’re pretending to be married, then we should just go all the way.”

  Jack grins. I get a tingly feeling as he leans in and whispers in my ear. “Whenever you’re ready to go all the way, you just let me know, Ms. Radley. I will be there with bells on.”

  The Italian Mamma bounds over to our table and grabs Jack by the chin, giving it a squeeze. “I just heard the good news, Jackie. I’m so happy for you,” she says, though a dark cloud passes over her as she scans his face with her sad brown eyes. “Whenever I see you I think of my Joey.” She turns her attention towards me. “And congratulations to the lovely bride.” She beams sincerely, then glances back at Jack and utters in a thick voice. “Joey would’ve been so happy.” The two share a moment ripe with emotion as she gives Parella’s hand a squeeze and glides away.

  “What was that all about? Who’s Joey?”

  Parella’s expression is blank, revealing nothing. “He was my partner.”

  “Your partner? As in, your partner in crime…business partner…or like…you know, partner partner?”

  “No, Liza, I wasn’t gay in my prior life. He was my partner on the force. I was a beat cop and then a detective for ten years before I started the shop.”

  I consider him. “Makes sense. You seem kind of cop-ish. So what happened? Why’d you quit? And what happened to Joey?”

  “It’s pretty complicated, but let’s just say Joey was a casualty of the job and it just wasn’t the same without him. I took a bullet the day he died, got a small settlement, quit the force, and opened Eye Spy.”

  “So you’re an ex-cop with an ex-wife shot in the line of duty. You’re quite the man of mystery, Jack Parella.”

  He smirks. “Not really. I just had a life before I met you.”

  I study him briefly before saying anything further. His eyes and body language seem open, so I decide to go for it and ask him the question that’s been gnawing at me since our trip to the hospital.

  “Do you still love her?”

  He seems unsettled and plays with the crushed red pepper shaker on the table. I took an acting class in college and remember the professor calling that bit of human behavior “creative hiding.” I decide not to push and let Jack ease into the subject.

  “Yeah. I guess in a way I do. I loved Lucia from the first time I saw her. Her skirt was accidentally tucked into the side of her panties as she was walking to work at Ed’s House of Flapjacks. I took one look at her long legs and those pink cotton panties and I was toast. I sat at the counter and just watched her. She treated every customer the same. With a cute smile and a kind of dignity. Even the ones who obviously didn’t have a lot of bucks, you know? I knew right then I wanted to marry her. So I went there every morning before the academy and had coffee and hash browns at the counter till I worked up the nerve to sit in her station. She walked right up to me with her hands on her hips and said, “I was wondering how long it would take you.” She gave me one of her signature smiles and I was a goner after that. We were married six months later…and divorced after three years.”

  I reach for his hand. “Better to have loved and gotten lost as they say.” I realize I messed that up somehow, but he lets it slide. I think he got the gist.

  He cocks his head to the side and asks me, “What about you? You still have feelings for Bernie?”

  I get an instant frown on my face. “Do I have feelings for Bernie…hmmmm. Yeah. I suppose I do. I have strong feelings. Like a feeling that I want to run a semi into his stupid yellow Porsche and definitely a feeling of destroying every stupid letter he wrote me during the two weeks he went fishing in Alaska, and I have an incredibly strong feeling that I wish he would just drop off the face of the earth- but not before I get to kick him repeatedly in the shins.”

  Jack pours me some water. “I think it’s still too soon to reminisce about the good times.”

  My eggplant arrives on a white oval plate. It’s steamy, gooey, and all of the wonderful things one wishes eggplant would be. Parella has a giant plate of meatballs with a red sauce. He takes a piece of bread and squishes it between his fingers, dips it in the sauce, and plops the whole glob into his mouth with relish.

  “She makes better gravy than my Nana, God rest her soul,” Jack says. “Though if she’s up there listenin’ right now, she’s cursin’ my name.”

  I’m reminded of the wax seal on Mr. Calligraphy’s note as I glance down at my eggplant surrounded by blood red sauce. I have to get to the bottom of what that crest means even if Jack doesn’t think it’s important. I turn my gaze in his direction as I wonder what makes him tick.

  “So why a spy shop, Parella?”

  He shrugs and says nonchalantly. “Figured it was kinda like helpin’ people solve stuff, you know? I always liked that part of the job when I was on the force. It just popped into my head one day, and I ran with it.”

  I consider the profound statement that he just casually threw out there and realize that in all the time I was married to Bernie I was never allowed to follow any of my gut feelings. Being a couple we had to collectively agree on everything. Like the time I wanted to open up an ice cream shop where you pick your own toppings and it gets mashed together on a big stone slab (before Cold Stone Creamery brought it into fashion). Bernie thought it was a silly idea and asked why I wouldn’t just use a blender. I had a bunch of ideas like that over the years but Bernie never went for any of them. Before I can sensor myself, I blurt, “I want to start a business.”

  Jack gives me a crooked grin. “Yeah? What kinda business?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. But when it comes to me, I’m just going to run with it.”

  Jack lifts his almost empty Chianti glass. “I’ll drink to that, Radley.”

  52

  We finished our leisurely lunch just in time for me to drive back to Andover and meet a prospective tenant. A professor from the university. Annie suggested that he might rent my big, half empty, broken home. She runs a committee for the school—some sort of charity thing—and meets all kinds of society t
ypes there. It’s good having friends in high places (or at least in medium places to help you rent your house out quick).

  I grab the pile of Boston Heralds from the front step and enter my cold, two-story foyer. I quickly turn on some lights, put on an old big band CD, and spray some vanilla spice perfume all over the house. I read somewhere that the senses play a big role in how people feel when they walk into a place.

  I hope he’s not allergic.

  As I park myself at the dining table to browse the classifieds for a new home, I realize that I have absolutely no idea which part of the city I want to live (which is simultaneously exciting and terrifying). I circle a few that sound charming in several different neighborhoods. I may be living in a “quaint walk up with bay window seat” or a “one bedroom garden apartment with exposed brick walls and fireplace” soon. For the first time in months, I feel a rush of hope that’s so foreign yet feels so good.

  The doorbell chimes promptly at five o’clock. Behind my front door stands a gorgeously bookish man, in his early to mid-forties, wearing a tweed jacket, tortoise shell spectacles and all the other quintessential professorial ingredients one would expect.

  Yum. I bet he smokes a pipe.

  Briskly opening the door, I put my hand out to shake. He does the same and says in a perfectly elegant Scottish accent: “Hello, I’m Robert Mac Mullen. A pleasure.”

  I take his hand and feel my knees buckle slightly. I’ve had a thing for the “Highlanders” ever since I read a series of books by Diana Gabaldon. They’re about a woman who travels through time and is rescued by a rogue clansman with long red hair. And of course, true to every female fantasy, she “rescues him right back” a la Pretty Woman. Anyway, between his accent and the faint scent of sandalwood emanating from his hair, I’ve got a bona fide schoolgirl crush on the professor (and it doesn’t hurt that I’ve still got my Chianti goggles on from lunch).

  He releases my hand and I say in a faint Georgia drawl that comes out at the most inopportune times, “Hi, I’m Liza. Please do come in.”

  The door shuts behind him and I stand grinning like a dope. “Uhh, have a look around… professor.”

  I’m totally reverting to Liza with the Aqua Net-sprayed bangs and retainer right now.

  “Please call me Robert.”

  I give him another dopey smile. “Robert it is then.”

  He clasps his hands behind his back and makes his way towards the dining room as if he is strolling through a gallery surveying priceless art.

  “Does it come furnished?” he asks.

  “Uhh…well, it can if you like,” I blurt out. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but it might be great to get all new stuff to start my all-new life. “You know what, it actually does come furnished. Definitely furnished,” I exclaim with a self-assured nod.

  As he walks through my favorite spot in the house, and considers the two-story brick fireplace, he says, “It’s a large home…a bit larger than I was looking for, since I’m all alone, you see…but this room is simply so enchanting that I must take it.”

  His statement, combined with his lovely Scottish lilt, makes me giggle like a girl fresh out of junior high. “It’s my favorite room too. Don’t you even want to see the upstairs before you decide?”

  “Yes, of course I’d like to see it, but I’ve made up my mind. I’m a man of instinct. I know what I want when I see it.” He looks deep into my eyes as he says the last bit and I feel my heart flutter.

  This being single stuff is kind of fun. I can have little crushes anytime I want without the guilt.

  As I lead him upstairs he comments on all my favorite pieces of furniture, and even spots the Irish linen fingertip towels in the second bath that Mamma gave me for an anniversary present. This guy’s got taste.

  We discuss the terms and I promise to put together a makeshift lease agreement by next week. The move in will be at the beginning of the month, which gives me exactly ten days to find and furnish a place.

  I wanted a new life. Now I’ve got it…in spades.

  53

  As the door shuts behind Professor McHottington, my new tenant, I recognize that it’s time to get serious about my apartment hunt. I better call Josie because she knows how to find just about anything. She answers on the first ring.

  “Well, how’d it go?”

  “He took the place.”

  “That’s great, but is he cute?”

  I pause just to make her squirm, since I have a sneaking suspicion that the three of them have had a powwow about this. “A total fox. But I’m off men, remember?”

  “Fine, suit yourself. But give a girl some details, would ya? Us old maids like to live vicariously.”

  Josie is the only one of us that’s never been married. She’s been asked plenty of times, just never did the deed. “Old maid, my butt. So… he’s exactly—I mean exactly—what you would expect a professor to look like; and…he has a Scottish accent.”

  She gasps. Josie was the one who turned me on to the Gabaldon books. “Shut up. That’s so hot in a Dragonfly in Amber sort of way.”

  “That’s exactly what it made me think of! Jamie the rogue Highlander riding through the plains with Claire at his side.”

  Josie lets out a deep sigh. “Whatever happened to that kind of romance, huh? The kind of love that could sustain time travel and all the pesky little quirks it brings. I tell ya, if I ever met a Jamie MacDougal, I’d walk down the aisle in a second.”

  “Well, this guy’s name is Robert Mac Mullen, so close enough.”

  “Does he have flowing auburn locks and ride bareback?”

  “He drove a Volvo and looks like he had a cut and shave this morning.”

  “Then no deal.”

  “Anyway, I didn’t call to try and marry you off. I need help finding an apartment. And the only place I know to look is the paper.”

  “Oh, my dear girl, we’re living in the golden age of Google. You never have to defile your fingers with printer’s ink again.”

  “Defile. So dramatic.”

  She snorts, “I’ll be over in ten with my Air,” and promptly hangs up.

  Josie’s “Air” is her beloved Mac Book Air 2, which is light as a feather and easily the slimmest, most attractive computer on the planet.

  I order some of her favorite Chinese crispy orange chicken take-out and change the music to the soundtrack from St. Elmo’s Fire, which is hands down my favorite eighties movie, second only to The Breakfast Club.

  Music, check. Food, check. New life…getting checked off one piece at a time…

  54

  Three hours, three empty Chinese containers, and a bottle of Riesling later we have it narrowed down to four places. All of which oddly happen to be within walking distance of Eye Spy.

  I’m actually excited at the prospect of living in the city. Waking up in the middle of the night won’t seem so bad now ’cause I can just go to the late night theatre at the Imax by the aquarium, or to some club with crazy thumping techno music, or a twenty-four hour grocery store. The options are limitless. And I’ll drive a lot less ’cause I can walk or cab it. Maybe even take public transportation. God forbid. And did I happen to mention that there are Dunkin’ Donuts within, hop, skip and jumping distance? That in it self is reason enough for the move (though Josie says the donut chain might be in financial trouble, which I’m choosing not to believe).

  “Wow, I can’t believe you’re leaving Andover. No more four musketeers.”

  Josie’s voice is thick and her eyes look misty. It truly sinks in for the first time that life, as I know it, is changing forever.

  “Yeah, I guess things really are going to be different. But I’ll still be an honorary musketeer right?” I ask, feeling vulnerable and as if I might shatter into a million pieces.

  She puts her arms around me and rests my head on her barely post-pubescent bosoms and says, “You are the original musketeer, my love. No distance could ever change that.”

  I wipe my runny nose on my
sleeve. “I can’t believe how sappy you’re getting in your old age,” I reply with a snort.

  “Yeah, well, don’t let it get out,” she mumbles. “Let’s eat that mint chip while the night is still young, shall we?”

  I can always count on Josie to pack away enough sweets to rival a group of toddlers at a carnival. I’m sure going miss her being just around the corner.

  55

  I wake to the sound of incessant beeping. It’s still dark so it must be the middle of the night. Once I get my bearings, I realize that it’s Josie’s limp body snoring lightly next to me, and that the beeping is my cell phone’s annoying reminder that I have a message. I never did figure out how to turn off that hair-raising feature. I make a mental note to add it to my ever-growing list of things that I’ll get to in the distant future.

  I fumble around attempting to locate the beeping offender before it wakes snoring beauty, who is gracelessly passed out the sofa with a trickle of drool glistening down her chin. Tripping over a boot I stub my toe, but manage to find the source of annoyance in my purse. Under some petrified mints and the daily planner I used for all of one day.

  Hmmm. Looks like I missed two calls in my fried dumpling coma.

  One of the numbers I recognize as Mamma’s car phone number. She’s one of those people who still insist on having a separate phone in her car, which looks like a clunky, dinosaur age contraption attached to a thick -slinky like-cord.

  The other number is a Savannah area code too, but I don’t recognize it. I grab a half eaten fortune cookie off the table and dial my messages.

  Number one: Mamma leaving her flight number. Number two: John Gainey.

  Huh?

  He was the hottest guy at Savannah High and heir to a bustling peach canning business. I had no idea he would even remember my name. I was a freshman when he was a senior. I remember Mamma saying he never did marry. I turn on the speakerphone feature and replay the message in the hopes of waking Josie because I’m just dying to tell someone that the most popular boy in school just called me!