by A W Hartoin
“No. How would I know? I was in Paris and nobody said anything.”
“Obviously, Raquel told you when you got back,” said Grandad.
I leaned on the door and rubbed my eyes, trying not to aggravate the egg. “We’re not friends, Grandad. We’ve never been friends.”
He scoffed. “How can you say that? You’ve always been close. Same college. Lived on the same floor. You went to lunch all the time.”
“We were the same year. We had to live on the same floor and the lunches were all you and Robert. She hates me. Big time hates me.”
Grandad looked at Raptor. She had the decency not to deny it.
“She still could’ve said she was sorry,” she said.
I took a deep breath. “I didn’t know and I am sorry. Judith was a nice lady.” Unlike her granddaughter. “Very sweet. Can I ask what happened? She couldn’t have been very old.”
Raptor sniffed and grabbed a tissue. “Seventy-three. She had a stroke.”
“I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have asked you about her and Cheryl if I’d known.”
“Cheryl who?” asked Grandad.
“Cheryl Morris,” I said. “It came up that Robert’s wife was good friends with her.”
Grandad stepped back toward the stairs. “Came up how?”
“I called Dr. Watts and she told me.”
He gripped the newel post again. “You called Dot? Why would you do that?”
I glanced at Raptor and she looked as puzzled as I felt. “Because I was trying to find out who killed Hal. You sure wouldn’t talk to me.”
Grandad pointed at me. “You are not to call Dot again. Do you hear me?”
I hear and I do not obey.
“Okay,” I said.
“Do you swear to me that you will not bother Dot about this again? She’s fragile and I don’t want your insensitive questions to kick up any of her issues.”
“I promise.” I said it and I meant it. At least, I meant it technically. He didn’t say I couldn’t call Grandma J. He didn’t say Raptor couldn’t call Dr. Watts.
“Alright then,” he said, visibly relieved. “Comb that blood out of your hair and come down for Aaron’s class.”
He walked gingerly down the stairs, trying not to jostle his back. I watched him until he disappeared and turned back to Raptor.
“What was that about?” she asked.
“I wish I knew.”
“Why do you have blood in your hair?”
I explained about the RV and the storm.
“The weirdest things happen to you.”
“Tell me about it,” I said. “I am really sorry about your grandmother.”
“Thanks. I thought you were just ignoring it.”
“Is that why you’re on this trip?”
Her eyes filled and I thought I’d stepped in it again. I had, but for once, I didn’t get blamed for it.
“I guess you don’t know about my mom,” she said after blowing her nose.
Ah, crap!
“No,” I said hesitantly.
Raptor’s mom, Kimberly, hadn’t taken her mother’s sudden death well and was in a treatment program for severe depression. She’d stopped eating and had crying jags that lasted for hours. The eating thing was something I understood. At hearing her story, my own hunger disappeared, once again. I had to learn to deal with pain in a different way, just like Kimberly would. Grief and guilt have steep learning curves and I was no master at coping.
“How’s her prognosis?” I asked after a minute.
“What do you think?” she asked harshly.
“I don’t know, Raquel. I wish I could think less. That would be nice. Less thinking.”
She wiped her eyes. “What are you thinking about all the time?”
“Hal, Robert, now Judith. That guy I killed in New Orleans. Chuck and his deal. I can’t believe all the stuff that’s happened.”
She gave me a wan smile. “I can’t believe I’m here with you. I can’t believe I’m here at all. I had a bad feeling about it.”
“Did you?” My interest was piqued. Usually, people dismissed feelings as ridiculous. “Why?”
“Oh it’s not like your stupid father. I always feel bad now.”
“It might be more. Don’t dismiss it so easily,” I said.
“I don’t have instincts…not like you, anyway.”
Was that a compliment? No way.
“I think you do. You knew Hal was murdered the minute you saw him. You just didn’t want to believe it.”
“I guessed.”
“Is there anything you can tell me about Cheryl Morris and your grandma?”
She scratched Wallace on the head and said, “I never saw Cheryl before The Rack and Ruin. I didn’t know it was her until you mentioned it later.”
“Judith never talked about her?”
“She did, a little. Where Cheryl went on vacation. That kind of thing.” Raptor’s eyes filled. “I’m never going to hear her talk again.”
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
She glared at me. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. You don’t need that tea. You need the big guns.”
“Big guns?” she asked, but I was already out the door.
I jogged down the stairs and went into the kitchen. Everyone was gathered around the big island, talking and sipping from extra-large mugs. Big Mike was there, looking exhausted and almost gaunt.
“You didn’t comb your hair,” said Grandad. “Go back up.”
“I will. Where’s Aaron?” I asked.
My partner popped up from behind the island, holding his ratty backpack. “Huh?”
“I need hot chocolate. The super stuff. Raptor’s grandma died. She had a stroke. I didn’t know. Nobody told me. Nobody said.”
“Alcohol?”
“I don’t know.”
Virginia nodded. “Yes. Give her the works.”
Aaron dug around in the backpack to pull out his fancy chocolate and small bottles of booze. “Coconut or cherries?”
“I don’t know. Both?”
He shook his head.
“Let me think,” I said.
Raptor had eaten a ton of those snowball cakes when we were in nursing school. I thought they were horrible, but she ate them daily. “Coconut.”
Aaron took over the big stove, grating chocolate into a combo of half and half and whole milk. He heated it slowly while whipping the heavy cream by hand and adding vanilla cream.
“It’s like watching an artist,” said Janet.
“He’s a food artist,” said Barney. “So are you okay, Mercy?”
“Fine.”
“Did Steve suffer?
What to say? The answer was yes. You couldn’t get your head bashed in without suffering, but everyone, except Aaron, was looking at me.
“We’ll know more when they do the autopsy,” I said.
Big Mike, Janet, and Barney nodded, but Grandad watched me with those blue eyes, so much like my dad’s. They saw everything I didn’t want to say.
A phone rang and hands went to pockets. Grandad was the winner and stepped away. There was a stiffness in his gait that was getting worse.
“Has he been taking his Tramadol?” I asked Big Mike.
“What do you think?”
“He should. The healing will go easier.”
“Ace saw men get addicted in the hospital we were in. He was tough then. He’ll be tough now.”
I looked over at Grandad’s thin shoulders and remembered the scars. “He didn’t take painkillers? How is that possible?”
“He took the minimum and he healed up just fine,” said Big Mike. “Looks like you could use a painkiller or two yourself.”
“I’ll take a Motrin.”
Grandad came back over and asked Virginia, “I don’t suppose you have an extra room?”
“Not during the rally,” she said. “Why?”
“Jeanette needs a place to stay. She doesn’t want to go back to her room alone.”
“I’ve got an extra twin, too,” said Grandad.
“Works for us,” said Virginia, bending toward me when no one was looking. “And you can ask her some questions.” She winked and I smiled. I’d do that. Absolutely.
The room filled with the scent of boozy coconut and Aaron poured a steaming mug of thick chocolate. He plopped a dollop of whipped cream in the mug and shaved a different type of chocolate on top and added a sprinkle of candied pecans.
“Now that’s what I call hot chocolate,” said Kathleen. “Sign me up.”
Aaron made everyone mugs and I headed upstairs with mine and Raptor’s. She sat on the bed with Wallace snoozing in her lap as she talked on the phone. “Okay, Mom. I love you, too. Bye.”
“How is she?”
“Better. They’ve got her on Celexa and Ativan,” said Raptor. “It’s helping.”
“What about Robert? I had no idea anything was happening. He seems okay.”
“He went on Lexapro immediately. He said he knew he couldn’t deal with it. They were married so long he didn’t know how to cook an egg or do the bills.” She got choked up. “Grandma did everything like that.”
“I can only imagine.”
“No, you can’t. Your grandmas are still alive.” She said it much less viciously than I would’ve expected.
“You’re right. I haven’t got a clue.”
She sipped her hot chocolate and I lay back on my bed. Something about Judith and Cheryl, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“I hate to ask, but did you talk about Cheryl Morris with your mom?”
The way she looked at me, I could tell she was weighing her options. Helping me was kind of unthinkable for Raptor. Honestly, I felt the same way about her.
“Somebody tried to paralyze your grandpa, Raquel. I get it. I piss you off, but it’s not about us.”
“It’s always about you.”
I sat up and got my mug. “I honestly don’t know why you say that.”
“You were famous when I met you. People knew your name. Doctors wanted to date you. You got the best rotations. You never got stuck on the crap floors, dealing with Dr. Vangle trying to feel you up in the break room.”
“Ew. He got you, too.”
“Don’t tell me he tried to feel you up.” She rolled her eyes.
“Raquel, people try to feel me up on a weekly basis. Happens all the time. They think they can do what they want because I look like a drug-addled sexpot from the sixties.”
“So Dr. Vangle…”
“How do you think he got that black eye sophomore year?”
“That was you?”
I nodded. “That’s why I never got the crap rotations. They thought I’d maim the sleazers.”
“You probably would.”
I raised my mug. “You know it.” We clinked mugs.
“I did ask her about Cheryl and Grandma.”
“Anything useful?”
“I don’t know what’s useful,” said Raptor.
“Okay. Let me decide.”
There wasn’t much to decide. Raptor’s mom had met Cheryl once in New York when she was a teenager. It was a girl trip and several of the Gold Stars were there, but Kimberly didn’t remember which ones. Judith and Cheryl’s friendship was mostly long distance. They met every couple of years in Vegas or at an inn in Vermont, never in St. Louis. Kimberly thought Cheryl genuinely loved her mother. Judith certainly loved Cheryl. They’d been stationed on the same base during the war and had waited for bad news together. When Cheryl got the ultimate bad news, Judith helped her survive it.
My fingernails tapped my mug. “So you said your mom only met Cheryl that one time?”
“Yeah. What about it?” Raptor took a big sip and a glazed look came over her eyes. I was starting to think of that as the Aaron effect.
I dreaded asking the next question in case it broke the spell of Raptor not hating me, but I had to do it. “Did you have a funeral?”
Her expression hardened. “Of course we did. What kind of family do you think we are?”
“It’s not that. If you had a funeral, how come Cheryl wasn’t there? They were dear friends. That’s weird.”
She took another sip, relaxing. “That is weird. I never thought about it. Maybe she didn’t have the money to fly in on short notice.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know, but there’s something off about that. Did your mom say anything about Cheryl’s husband’s death or stuff getting stolen off of soldiers’ bodies?”
“Oh, my god, no,” she said. “That happened?”
“I guess it happened a lot. There was an investigation. Cheryl claimed several items were stolen from Lt. Morris.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Yeah, it is. There was also something about the autopsy not being thorough.”
“They don’t know how he died?”
I swirled my hot chocolate. “They knew. Cause of death was a grenade.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Nasty. So why was she pissed at our guys?”
“No idea. Nobody will tell me.”
“How much alcohol is in this stuff?” Raptor asked, yawning.
“Enough to put me to sleep,” I said. “If it weren’t for that ruckus downstairs.”
“What?” She cocked her head to the side. “Oh, yeah. We must have new guests.”
I shook my head. “Virginia said they’re full. Maybe it’s Jeanette.”
“She’s coming? Ah, crap.”
“Well, Steve’s dead. I doubt there will be much fighting,” I said.
“I wouldn’t count on it.” She yawned again and lay down. “You go check it out.”
“Throwing me under the bus. I see how it is.”
Raptor gave out a weak laugh and closed her eyes. I’d never seen her so pleasant before. She was almost nice.
I picked up her empty mug and left a snoring Wallace with her when I snuck out, closing the door against all the noise coming up from the first floor. Who in the world was laughing? It wasn’t a jovial night in the least. I turned the corner into the kitchen and almost dropped the mugs. Mickey Stix and the rest of Double Black Diamond were at the island, all big hair and swagger.
“Mercy!” exclaimed Mickey, coming over to give me a hug. “What happened to your head?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He almost never did. “This is perfect. We’re all set up at The Chip for tomorrow night. We need some rehearsal time. The beautiful and generous Virginia”—he kissed the innkeeper’s hand—“has offered to let us use her barn. We’re staying at some casino. Not far. Easy drive. You look tired. Have you been sleeping?”
“Hell, no, she hasn’t been sleeping,” said Wade, striking his lead singer pose. Janet almost passed out and Barney looked stunned. Actually, everybody was stunned. DBD had that effect on people. “It’s Sturgis, baby.”
“How did you know where I am?” I said once I stopped being stunned.
“Morty told me,” said Mickey.
I am going to kick him so hard.
“Um…I don’t really have time to rehearse. There’s a lot going on,” I said.
“Haven’t you solved those murders yet?” Jimmy was Wade’s brother, twice as blond and half as flirty.
Darren Echols, the bassist, came over and gave me a hug and a kiss. He was my favorite. We had a rough start in Colorado, but he turned out to be a real sweetheart after he’d come out and wasn’t living in constant fear of being forced into revealing his true self. It turned out that the public didn’t care that he was gay. Darren was able to relax, becoming the generous man he was meant to be.
“You couldn’t stop them from coming?” I asked Darren.
“Are you kidding? This is a chance for more publicity. Mickey wouldn’t pass that up and I have an idea that you ne
ed the money.”
“I do, but not this much.”
He kissed my other cheek and turned to the room. “You know what would be great? If Mercy announced on stage who did it.”
I shoved Darren. “You skunk!”
He laughed. “I’ll get you out of debt whether you like it or not.”
“That’s a fantastic idea,” said Mickey. “We’ll make the morning shows on Monday.”
The band nodded. “The Today Show or the other one?” asked Jimmy.
“Good Morning, America?” asked Janet, brushing her silky black hair out of her eyes.
Wade slung a long arm over her small shoulders. Her knees buckled and he had to hold her. Years of practice. Wade knew how to keep a fan on her feet. “Which one do you like?”
“ABC,” Janet squeaked.
“Then we’ll do that one.”
“I’ll cook on The Chew,” said Darren. “Mario and I are buds.”
What is happening?
“I thought this was a benefit concert?” I asked.
Mickey pulled me to him. “It is, sweetheart. We’re fronting all the production costs and not making a dime.” He gave me a pirate’s grin, reminiscent of Johnny Depp. “But a little free publicity never hurt anyone.”
“It hurts me all the time,” I said.
“You’re going to be more famous than ever after this.”
“Please, no.”
They all laughed. Famous was their thing. Why would anyone not want to be famous? Inconceivable.
“Raquel,” said Grandad. “Come in.”
Raquel stood in the doorway with a look of loathing that I knew so well. Well, I enjoyed the nice while it lasted.
She didn’t move and Grandad went over, drawing her into the room and stroking her back. Janet joined them and they went to the fireplace.
“We’re going to have to do something about that knot you’re sporting,” said Mickey, assessing my face.
“I’ll wear a hat.”
He laughed. “I’m not interested in hiding that fabulous face.”
I am.
“Lacy!” Mickey called out. “Where is that girl?”
“Right here!” A hand went up from behind Big Mike and Lacy from Sexy Stitches stepped out. I think I gasped a little. She was wearing a sheer body stocking with strategically placed rhinestones and, I’m sorry to say, embroidered snakes. She dashed over, grabbed my arm, and kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”