by Sandra Balzo
God knows I understood that. Ted left me the day after we took Eric up to the Twin Cities for college. With both of them gone, I decided, idiot that I was, to compound matters by quitting my long-time public relations job at First National Bank.
Take it from me, middle-age is not the best stage of life to figure out who you want to be when you grow up. That process is one best done, aided by wine, marijuana and peanut butter and onion sandwiches, twenty or thirty years earlier.
‘It is not you my ex-wife desired,’ Jacque was saying to Rudy, ‘it is your lease. Naomi Verdeaux could not take over the entire building without your consent.’
Interesting, and not because Jacque spoke of her as ‘Naomi Verdeaux’. For all I knew, that could be just a French thing.
It was interesting because while I knew that Rudy had been the ‘make-or-break’ tenant when the mall opened and therefore had gotten a sweeter deal than we latecomers, I didn’t realize his original bargain gave him veto power of some kind.
Rudy was shrugging. ‘I was planning on hanging up the clippers anyway, now that I’m free to travel. Leaving the position of town chairman was the best thing I could have done.’
He continued. ‘I simply thought investing in Gross would be a good investment. A hobby of sorts.’
A hobby? More likely he’d hoped Naomi Verdeaux, the little whore, was going to be his ‘hobby’ for the next few years.
Hobby Whores - Brookhills’ answer to the Chicken Ranch, the real-life brothel that The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas was based on. Maybe we could get our own movie, too. Now there was a hobby for Rudy.
I snickered. Rudy and Jacque turned in my direction, so I ducked farther behind the coat rack at the door. Given there were no coats on it, though, it didn’t provide much cover.
When they continued to stare at me, I cleared my throat. ‘Just trying to keep warm.’
‘Then you should move away from the door,’ Rudy said. ‘I’ve been after Way for years to put weather-stripping around it to get rid of the draft.’
Whine, whine, whine.
Half the mall had collapsed and we were trapped for the night with two bodies in a freezer that could be buried by morning under a couple of tons of ceiling panels, wooden joints and sodden shingles.
Oh, and our landlord, who’d been so unresponsive, was dead. Forgive and forget, eh?
As I saw it, we should be grateful the remainder of our group was safe, warm or not.
‘Hey!’ Sarah was digging in a basket. ‘These look cozy.’ She shook a blue smock out and hair went flying.
Served her right. I’d never heard Sarah use the word ‘cozy’. Pretty soon she’d be ‘quainting’ and ‘charming’ us.
Then again, she was a real-estate agent.
‘Hey, those are dirty,’ Rudy said sourly, flicking a lock of hair off his nose. ‘They’re full of hair cuttings.’
Sarah looked at the oversized bib. ‘Might make ’em warmer,’ she said.
‘Like a hair shirt instead of a fur coat,’ Caron contributed from the couch in the waiting area.
She’d been paging through a copy of Deer Hunting Today, though she probably couldn’t see a thing in the dim light. All the best, given that Caron had cried through Bambi. Four times. And Lion King, too, though the latter proved less of a problem, living in Wisconsin. One doesn’t stumble across the King of Beasts very often.
‘God, my head hurts,’ she said now, putting the magazine down. ‘Maybe a ceiling tile hit me as we ran.’
Or a maraschino cherry. I was about to point out that the brandy old-fashioneds were the more likely culprit, when a muffled sob drew my attention back to the sinks. Mrs G was in the second of the two chairs, sobbing softly. Oliver was on the floor next to her, talking earnestly to Eric.
As Eric shook his head, apparently in irritation at something Oliver had said, Naomi Verdeaux stamped past them and right up to me.
‘Did your partner say something about a fur coat? It’s mine, you know, and I expect it back. She’d better not be getting any ideas about keeping it.’
Self-involved, thy name is Naomi Verdeaux. She made me look like Mother Teresa. But alive.
‘First of all,’ I said, ‘if you want to know what Caron said, why don’t you ask her?’
‘I would, if she’d come up for air.’ She pointed.
Caron had been joined on the couch by Bernie.
‘Honestly,’ Verdeaux said. ‘What is with that woman? She’s a worse slut than I am.’
‘True,’ I said, watching the canoodling. ‘But only with her husband.’ I didn’t add: ‘This year.’
‘As for the coat,’ I said, turning back to Verdeaux. ‘She wasn’t talking about yours.’
‘That’s right,’ Luc said, joining us. He had a paper cone cup from the water cooler in his hand. ‘Your coat is still blood- and snow-molded around poor Aurora’s body back in my freezer.’
Then, as Luc sipped from the cup, his eyes brightened. ‘Hey, I have an idea.’ He gestured toward the back hallway. ‘Maybe you should go retrieve it. And take Rudy with you. He’s good at stripping bodies.’
Apparently détente was over.
‘Daddy, don’t be rude,’ scolded Tien from the windows where she’d resumed watching the storm.
Luc squeezed Verdeaux’s shoulder and crossed to Tien. The rumbling of the storm had seemed to die out, or maybe it had been drowned out by the competing sound of the roof falling in. Now, though, it had resumed in earnest.
Luc stared out. Lightning flashed, and a boom followed immediately, meaning the storm was basically right overhead. ‘Ahh,’ he said, seeming transfixed, ‘reminds me of the war.’ He took another sip of water.
Tien regarded him suspiciously and then stuck her nose in the paper cup. ‘Is that brandy? You don’t drink.’
Luc, indeed, hadn’t downed his old-fashioned at Goddard’s. Caron had. Along with her own and everyone else’s left unattended for more than ten seconds.
Caron, who’d been in a lip-lock with Bernie, dropped him cold. ‘Brandy? Is there more? Maybe it would get rid of this headache.’
Right. ‘Hair of the dog,’ I muttered.
Frank, who was padding by, gave me a suspicious look.
‘Not your hair,’ I assured him and, seeming satisfied, he moved along.
Yet another reason why Frank was superior company to most humans I knew. He seldom required complex explanations. And he’d never sat down next to me with a ‘Can we talk?’
Rudy picked up the bottle of brandy that was on the floor next to the water cooler. ‘Found the open Korbel I was looking for, huh?’
He took a paper cone from the dispenser and poured some for himself, wisely ignoring Caron’s pleas from the couch. ‘You still think about Vietnam, Luc? The training? The wading through flooded rice paddies?’
‘I do.’ Luc took another slug. ‘Though I can understand why you would want to put it out of your mind. And it has nothing to do with rice paddies.’
Rudy surveyed Luc sadly. ‘A lot of us have memories we want to erase. Sometimes we try to do it with too much of that.’ He nodded at the cup in Luc’s hand.
Luc reddened in the glow of the nearby lime-green lantern. He crushed his half-full cone in his hand, sending brandy spritzing.
Naomi Verdeaux was in the line of fire. ‘Jesus, can’t you macho assholes act your age? Not only is my coat stolen from me, but now this silk blouse is ruined.’ She wiped at same, furiously.
Rudy went to help her, but she swatted away his hand. ‘Nice try,’ she snarled. ‘I’m cold and I’m wet, but you are the last person I want to warm me up. And though none of you apparently think it appropriate, even the person making the suggestion, I’m going to get my coat.’
She strode to the door, yanked on the handle and pushed hard twice before noticing the engaged deadbolt. Impatiently ramming it aside, she swept out into the back hallway, slamming the door behind her.
‘Gee,’ I said, injecting sisterly concern into my voice,
‘I hope she didn’t break a nail.’
After the laughter, weary as it was, subsided, Rudy shook his head. ‘Don’t underestimate that woman. I’m starting to think she’s capable of anything.’
Including stripping her coat off a dead woman as the mall falls down around her?
‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ Luc was saying. He was slurring his words a bit. ‘You know what I’ve been thinking?’ He moved unsteadily toward Rudy. ‘I’ve been thinking that soldiers are really good at sneaking up on someone and sticking a knife in their backs.’
Rudy laughed. ‘First you ruined my reputation by claiming I was a pimp way back when. Now you’re suggesting that because I was in Vietnam, I’m the best candidate for killing Benson? What about you? You’re a vet, too. And that thing sticking out of Way’s body looks a whole lot more like a meat cleaver than -’ he pointed at his wall display - ‘a straight razor.’
The way things were going, it might be a good idea to gather up every sharp implement in the place and throw them into a snowdrift so no one could hurt anyone.
But then there were always bare hands.
Luc leapt at Rudy, moving far more steadily now than I would have expected, given the alcohol. Rudy stumbled back, nearly knocking the five-gallon water jug off the cooler.
I looked around for help in the form of a male, but Jacque seemed content to sit back and enjoy the show, while Bernie was...otherwise occupied.
‘You fucking pimp,’ Luc said, advancing. ‘You’re accusing me of murder?’
Rudy put out both arms to fend him off. ‘Every swinging dick in Saigon was having sex with the local girls. You did, too. The only difference was that I made sure the guys paid them something to live on.’
‘Noble of you,’ Luc sneered or at least tried to. He had one eye closed, looking like a drunken Popeye.
‘More noble than you were,’ Rudy replied. ‘Do you think you did An a favor by taking her away from her family and then leaving her alone while you went to the bars? You didn’t drink yourself to death. You drank her to death.’
Luc launched himself at Rudy again, this time taking down both him and the water cooler. The two of them wrestled on the floor, the five-gallon bottle lolling next to them, its water glug-glug-glugging all over the floor.
I grabbed Luc’s shirt, trying to pull him off Rudy. They rolled and nearly took me down with them. Two other pairs of hands reached in and pulled the men apart.
I turned, expecting Jacque and Bernie. Instead, I saw Sarah and Tien. Tien had tears running down her face. Sarah looked like she just wanted to haul off and hit someone herself.
‘You numbskulls,’ she yelled. ‘We’re stuck in a blizzard with no way of communicating with the outside world. We have not one, but two, dead bodies stored in a meat freezer. And now the roof is falling in. Do you think you could possibly save this for another time?’
Tien was helping her father up. ‘Are you OK, Daddy?’
Luc looked stricken. ‘You know that I loved your mother, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do,’ Tien assured him. ‘We can talk about this later, OK?’ She swiped at the tears on her face. ‘After we’re out of this mess.’
As Luc’s daughter continued to comfort him and Sarah continued to berate Rudy, I looked around for Eric.
I wouldn’t have wanted Eric to get between Rudy and Luc, but I’d never seen my son shrink from a fight.
So where was he now? Could he have gone after Verdeaux to stop her? Or make sure she didn’t get hurt? I grabbed a lantern and went to slip out the door. Frank came running.
‘I’m going to find Eric,’ I told the sheepdog. ‘You’ll be fine here.’
As I said, Frank was a sheepdog of few words. He simply turned tail and looked at the assemblage.
Tien was attending to Luc.
Luc was drunkenly protesting that he was fine.
Sarah was still giving Rudy hell.
Rudy, wisely, was accepting it.
Jacque was watching them appreciatively.
Caron was sipping, equally appreciatively, from a white paper cone.
Bernie, having found himself supplanted by a brandy a fraction of his age, was asleep on the couch.
Oliver was sitting alone, back against the wall.
Mrs G reclined in the shampoo chair, fast asleep with her head hanging over the wash basin.
‘Point taken,’ I said to Frank. ‘If anyone moves, bite them.'
And I slipped out into the hallway.
Chapter 23
To the left of me was An’s, where, presumably, Naomi Verdeaux had gone to retrieve her coat from Aurora’s body in the freezer.
Brrr. The idea was chilling in more ways than one.
And why did Eric decide to do a walkabout? Granted, he was a curious kid - no, man, now - but I didn’t see my son trailing after Naomi Verdeaux, a woman he’d just met, especially when, however siren-like, she wouldn’t be attractive to him. Yet another thing to be grateful for.
On the other hand, surveying the damage to the old wing might appeal to him. As far as the light of my little lantern reached, the hallway ceiling to my left seemed largely intact, despite the feeling of impending doom I’d experienced as I pounded on the barbershop door. Seven ceiling tiles down, but that was about the extent of the damage.
Still, who knew what lingered beyond the light?
To my right was Uncommon Grounds, in the new part of the mall and, as far as I knew, with no storm-related problems at all.
What it did have, though, was Eric’s favorite energy drink.
I turned right.
So nice to have suspects accusing each other, I thought as I made my way down the hall. Eliminates an awful lot of pesky thinking.
Not that thinking had gotten me closer to the truth, anyway. My name badge chart was now buried, and almost certainly water-smeared. But even if the Hannah Montana pen contained waterproof ink and the name badges were laminated, I’m not sure how much good it would have done me. Information is one thing, but knowing how it fits together is something entirely different.
Arriving at Uncommon Grounds door, I turned the knob and got a sinking feeling. It was locked. Had I locked the door when Frank and I left? I didn’t think so.
The answer, of course, was that Caron had returned to lock it. She was the responsible one, after all. The business partner who had affairs, dyed her hair red and then blonde, was having a boob hoist, had gotten dead drunk on brandy old-fashioneds, made out with her husband on a lawn chair and a couch, and was now trying to stave off a hangover with more of the poison that had produced it.
She was the responsible one.
Boy, was Uncommon Grounds in trouble.
Not to mention yours truly, who, as of today had managed to lose her son in a shopping mall twice.
The first was when Eric was six-years-old and decided it would be fun to disappear into the center of a circular dress rack and stand on the base so his little feet wouldn’t show. It was hide-and-go-seek, he said. Eric was hiding, I was the one shrieking hysterically. Damn game should be renamed.
But as frightening as that might have been, this one topped it, what with our being in what might be just the middle stage of a hundred-year storm.
And, oh yeah, with a brutal murderer on the loose.
OK, stop and reason this through. If Caron had locked the door to our shop, Eric wouldn’t have been able to get in, either. If he’d even tried.
So where was he?
As I turned away from the door, I heard a click.
‘Mom?’
I lifted the lantern. My son had a canned energy drink in his hand.
‘Eric.’ I grabbed him and gave him a hug. ‘I was so worried about you. When I saw that the door was locked, I figured you couldn’t be inside.’
‘Unless, of course -’ he stood aside to let me pass through - ‘I was already inside and locked the door like you did at Goddard’s and Rudy’s. You know,’ he smirked, ‘to keep us safe.’
&nb
sp; Have I expressed sufficiently my dislike of smart-assed teenagers, including my own, on occasion?
I tried a motherly scold. ‘You shouldn’t have gone anywhere without telling me. You could have been killed.’
How many parents, when they say those words, mean them literally?
Eric’s face changed. ‘Sorry. I just needed to think and with the wrestling exhibition and all, it was tough.’
There was that.
‘Is something wrong?’ I asked.
‘You mean besides the blizzard, totaling the van and being trapped in a shopping mall with ten other people, two dead bodies, a sheepdog and no running water?’
The child has his mother’s sense of humor. More’s the pity.
‘Yes,’ I said icily. ‘Besides that.’
‘You’re cold,’ Eric said, backing out of the circle of light my lantern was providing. ‘Why don’t you put on the coat?’
Coat? What coat?
I glanced around.
Everything seemed peaceful, which made me suspicious. Peace in our time not being something one could depend upon.
The litter of our earlier stay was still evident. Cups on the tables. Milk spilled on the counter. I lifted the lantern.
A couple of puddles and a single snowshoe. Bernie's of course. Where were Caron and her paper towels when you needed them?
Probably sleeping it off.
And there, at one table, was Aurora Benson’s coat, still draped over a chair. Eric handed it to me.
Pulling it on, I took a second to think about the woman whose coat was giving me warmth.
And whose body would never feel the garment or any warmth again.
Poor Aurora. I ran my hand over the fur-trimmed collar. I might have made fun of her as the ‘Weather Slut’, but I had liked her. She would be missed - especially by Oliver. What would he do now?
What would we all do now? Uncommon Grounds was still standing, but more than half the mall was reduced to the kind of rubble I’d always associated with hurricanes and tornados. Would it be rebuilt? Torn down? Where would we go?
Since that wasn’t a dilemma we could solve before day-break, it didn’t bear thinking about.