What Stella Wants

by Bartholomew, Nancy

  I sat up, remembering Bitsy, and grabbed the clock off the bedside table. Jake was scheduled to hear from Bitsy at seven. It was after eight now. Where was he? Why hadn’t he gotten me up?

  By the time I made it downstairs to the kitchen for coffee, my mind was racing. I wasn’t only worrying about Jake; I was making mental lists of everything I needed to do. I needed to know more about Bitsy. I needed to check on Baby. I needed to check in with Detective Slovenick. I felt as if the day had started without me and I was already too late to catch up to it.

  Nina was ahead of me, already sitting at the kitchen table and drinking her coffee. I poured a cup, crossed the room to join her and quickly realized someone was having a worse morning than me. Nina’s eyes were puffy and swollen; her nose was red and chapped and it seemed she barely had the strength to lift her head in answer to my greeting.

  “Rough night?” I ventured.

  Nina’s eyes filled with tears as she nodded.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  A tiny sob escaped her throat as Nina struggled to speak. “It’s hopeless!” she wailed finally.

  I took a big sip of coffee and tried to wake up enough to help my cousin. “What’s hopeless, honey?”

  Nina reached into her bathrobe pocket and brought out a thick wad of tissue. “My life,” she said. “It’s me. I’m not like other people, and I used to think that was a good thing but now…now…” Nina broke off, unable to finish.

  “Nina,” I said, reaching over to pat her arm. “Does this have anything to do with you and Spike buying a house? Because if it does, you know, it’s normal for couples to find that a little stressful. I mean, sometimes you have different tastes and…”

  “They do?” Nina interrupted. “It is, normal I mean?”

  “Sure,” I said, hoping I sounded reassuring. “Happens all the time. You two will work things out.” I felt like I should break into “The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow,” and tap dance my way across the kitchen. That’s how hard I was trying to make Nina believe me, when in reality I had no idea if couples worked these sorts of things out all the time or not. I mean, my track record didn’t indicate many happy endings, but maybe I was just the victim of circumstance.

  “I hope so,” Nina said, brightening a bit.

  “You can count on it. Like I said before, just try not to take everything too personally. Maybe Spike’s just feeling a little scared.”

  Nina frowned. “Not Spike. She knows what she wants and she goes after it.”

  I nodded, feeling Nina’s insecurity begin to rise again. “It’s one thing to know what you want but it’s another to know what you feel. That’s why Spike loves you. You make her feel.”

  I looked at the clock and couldn’t help feeling worried about Jake. Why hadn’t he called in yet?

  “What’s wrong?” Nina asked.

  I shook my head. “Jake’s supposed to meet Bitsy this morning but I don’t know where and I haven’t heard from him.”

  Nina frowned and pulled her fuzzy, tie-dyed bathrobe tighter around her small frame. “That’s not like Jake, is it?” she asked.

  “Nope. I’m beginning to wonder about Bitsy, too,” I admitted. “I don’t know if she’s told us the full story yet.”

  “What full story?” Spike wandered into the kitchen looking every bit as tired and unhappy as Nina had been. She poured herself a cup of coffee and took her place at the table next to Nina. She looked distinctly uncomfortable and I could tell she was avoiding looking at my cousin.

  Nina reached over and placed her hand on Spike’s leg, whispered something in her ear and I saw Spike’s shoulders relax.

  “Really?” Spike asked softly.

  Nina smiled. “Normal,” Nina said. “I don’t care, brick, wood or adobe, as long as I’m with you, who cares?”

  I busied myself at the coffeepot, giving the reconciling lovebirds a few moments. I turned back around as Aunt Lucy and Arnold made their appearance. Arnold was wearing one of Uncle Benny’s bathrobes.

  “Good morning,” I said stiffly.

  Aunt Lucy frowned, saw me looking at Arnold and ignored me. Arnold, on the other hand, didn’t miss a trick. He looked down at the paisley flannel robe then over to me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have…”

  “Nonsense!” Aunt Lucy interrupted. “Benito would have given you the robe to wear himself. He is not here. It hangs in the closet, waiting, and for what? My Benny is never coming back to me. He loved me and I loved him something awful! His bathrobe didn’t love anybody. Why not wear it? It doesn’t make you into Benny. It makes you my Arnie wearing my dear Benito’s robe. What is wrong with that, eh?”

  Aunt Lucy looked around the room at each of us, daring us to say something to contradict her.

  “I’m sorry, Arnold,” I said and I really was sorry. “I saw Uncle Benny’s robe and…”

  “And you missed him,” Arnold finished. “Of course you did.” He started back toward the door. “I’ll just go get dressed. That’s what I meant to do anyway.”

  “No, wait!”

  Arnold stood quietly in the middle of the kitchen, looking smaller than ever and very frail. I felt like a total heel.

  “Aunt Lucy is right,” I said. “Uncle Benny would’ve been the first one to put that robe on you, and I dishonor his memory by acting like a baby. Sometimes I forget that my uncle is gone and all I have left are the things he taught me. Please don’t get me in more trouble with him,” I said, smiling. “He’ll haunt me if you go change!”

  Lloyd, standing by Aunt Lucy’s side, barked suddenly.

  “See!” Aunt Lucy cried. “My Benito is agreeing with her!” She looked at Arnie and gestured to my traitorous canine. “Benny speaks through him, you know.”

  In the face of that revelation, the entire bathrobe issue seemed a bit small, I’m sure. Arnold looked at Lloyd questioningly and Lloyd, on cue, trotted over to lick his hand.

  “Well, if you insist,” Arnold said, patting his head. “Thank you.”

  My entire family was nuts, and now everyone they brought along into the inner circle seemed to join in to the insanity.

  Soon the kitchen was filled with people and the smells of breakfast cooking. Arnold insisted on making the pancakes, over my aunt’s objections, and the two worked side by side filling orders and happily bickering about their different culinary habits and techniques.

  Poor Weasel wandered up and into the kitchen just in time to be put to work cleaning the pots and pans.

  “You know,” I heard him mutter, “I have lots of other skills. I can save lives, you know. I can make a computer do things you never dreamed were possible. I know the Latin name of every herb in your garden but what do you want me to do? The dishes, that’s what!”

  He stood at the sink, mumbling to himself while Sylvia Talluchi sat at the kitchen table watching him with a malevolent eye.

  I signaled Nina and the two of us quietly slipped out of the kitchen and back upstairs.

  “We need to learn more about Bitsy,” I told her when we reached the third floor. “Can you get online and see what you can find out?”

  Nina nodded. “Anything in particular you want to know?”

  I thought for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, I want to know more about that scientist that died while they were trying to get him out of the country,” I said. “His name was Gregor something and he was a biochemist working with DNA-related weapons.”

  Nina grinned, back to her old self again. “Okay, boss. I’m on it!”

  I left her, returning to my room to get dressed for the day. I pulled my cell phone out of my bathrobe pocket, flipped the lid open and stared at the blank display. No messages. I carried it into the bathroom with me while I showered. No messages. Dressed and dried my hair without it ringing. Finally, right before I decided to go looking for Jake on my own, it rang. When the Caller ID said “Restricted,” I answered.

  “Where are you?” I demanded.

  Detective
Joe Slovenick sounded disconcerted. “In my office,” he said. “Where are you?”

  “Oh,” I said, recognizing his voice. “It’s you.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you but yeah, it’s me. I need to talk to you about last night. How soon can you get down here?”

  I felt my pulse kick up a few notches. I didn’t need this now. I needed to find Jake.

  “How about this afternoon?” I said.

  “How about in twenty minutes?” he countered. He sounded like the offer was nonnegotiable.

  “Twenty minutes it is,” I said and severed the connection.

  Nina met me in the hallway, carrying her laptop. When she saw me she frowned and held the tiny computer out for my inspection.

  “You pay good money for these damned things and what happens?” she said, clearly not happy. “I’ll tell you what happens, they overheat. Now, in addition to that, something’s interfering with my cable reception and I can’t get online. I’m going to try downstairs, but if that doesn’t work, I guess I’ll have to go into the office.”

  “Okay,” I said cautiously, wondering what was wrong with the office.

  “You don’t want me to use the office computer for this, do you?” Nina’s eyebrows raised an extra half inch as she placed one hand on her hip and waited for me to catch on.

  “No, of course not,” I answered.

  Nina sighed. “Good! For a minute there I thought you were losing it! I mean, you totally don’t want your computer vulnerable to the feds. They could seize it, you know, and like, find out what you’re thinking. I thought you were trying to keep this confidential, but I just wanted to be sure.”

  “Absolutely,” I murmured. “We can’t risk a security breach.” But I was wondering why she thought her computer was so impenetrable, or indeed immune to government seizure should they decide to investigate Valocchi Investigations.

  Nina tapped the laptop and smiled knowingly. “Weasel showed me a couple of tricks yesterday. By the time I’m through, you couldn’t find a fragment of text if you tried.” Nina bit her lower lip and frowned again. “Hey, you don’t think that’s why I can’t get online, do you? I mean, if he’s screwed up my computer…Hell, it’s not even really my computer. This is the one Spike uses for…”

  Abruptly Nina left, running down the steps and calling Weasel’s name in a panicked tone. Nina was going to be a force to reckon with if he’d ruined her girlfriend’s laptop.

  I continued on down the stairs after her, checking my essentials as I went. Gun, cell phone, money, car keys…They were all where they were supposed to be. The only thing missing was Jake, still.

  I used the ride to the police station to clear my head and get focused. I could use my time with Detective Slovenick to try and find out what he knew about the man I’d stopped as well as anything else that might lead me to Bitsy or the people looking for her.

  I was prepared for Glenn Ford’s finest. What I was not prepared for, however, were the two people sitting next to Detective Slovenick in the cramped interview room. Shelia Martin, dressed in a tailored black pantsuit, her shiny black hair pulled back in a stiff ponytail, nodded coolly when I walked into the tiny office. A dark-haired man, who could’ve been in his forties or fifties, sat next to her. He was wearing a charcoal-gray suit and had the shut-down, emotionless demeanor of a federal-level cop. The telltale bulge under his armpit only served to confirm my suspicion. My morning was about to go from dreadful to godawful.

  I looked around the room and forced a smile. “How delightful,” I said. “A breakfast club meeting?”

  Slovenick, who hadn’t seemed any happier than I had been to see the two agents, bit down on the left side of his lower lip and suppressed a small smile.

  “Thanks for coming, Ms. Valocchi. We’d like to talk to you about the events of last evening.”

  I took the seat he indicated, still smiling and sighed. “You know,” I said, “I would like nothing better than to chat with you folks but I’m feeling significantly underrepresented here. I mean, it’s looking like three to one, and my team thought we were playing singles. How’s about we call my lawyer. She loves to play by the rules and she’s good at it, too.”

  Shelia tried to smile, but it came off more like a grimace. “Stella, we’d really like to keep this on more of an informal level. We’re not looking to charge you with anything.”

  I held up my hand. “Ahh-ahh! No! Don’t do it! Either I call my attorney or I’m leaving.”

  The man in the charcoal suit had apparently had enough. Without appearing to move any facial muscles other than his lips, he spoke. “Ms. Valocchi, under Section 218 of the federal Patriot Act, you can be detained and interrogated without benefit of an attorney should we feel your information constitutes a significant purpose of one of our ongoing investigations. As a member of an agency sworn to defend this country against internal and external terrorist threats, I can assure you that it is in your best interest to cooperate with our investigation.”

  I raised an eyebrow and looked right into the man’s face. “All that and he smells good, too. They sure shine ’em up good before they turn ’em loose on us ordinary citizens, huh?”

  Shelia Martin stirred slightly and focused her attention on me. “Stella, this is Randall Megan. He’s with the Department of Homeland Security and I am attached to him for the duration of this current investigation. It really would help if you could tell us where Jake Carpenter is and what involvement the two of you have had with Bitsy Blankenship.”

  It was as close to begging as Shelia was likely to get and it also told me several things. They knew we knew Bitsy was alive. They couldn’t find Jake, either, and lastly, it seemed to confirm that at least part of what Bitsy had told us was true. Maybe she did have a formula for a biological weapon and if so, she probably was in danger. Of course, I still didn’t know whether Shelia and her fellow agent, Randall Megan were trustworthy or bad guys.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll forgo the attorney for a few minutes. Now, what is it you want to know?”

  Randall Megan began by asking me to review the events surrounding and including the break-in to the print shop. He listened as I detailed the fabricated story Jake and I had used on Shelia without saying a word. When I’d finished, Shelia asked, “Where is Jake now?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea. I suppose he’s at his apartment.”

  Shelia gave me an “Oh, come on!” look. “You didn’t call him this morning?”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Of course I did, but he didn’t answer. Maybe he was in the shower or out running.”

  This didn’t seem to satisfy her but Randall Megan didn’t give her a chance to follow up.

  “Where’s Bitsy Blankenship?” he asked.

  “Dead,” I answered.

  “When’s the last time you saw her?” It continued to amaze me that the man could fire off question after question without changing his facial expression or moving.

  “Let’s see, I believe it was the keg party right after our high school graduation,” I said.

  “Try again,” he said. “Start with last night in the print shop.”

  “Bitsy had a sex change operation?”

  That got Megan moving. He jumped forward, slamming his hand, palm down onto the surface of the metal interview table between us and startling everyone in the room with the sudden sound. “This is bullshit!” he roared.

  I looked up at the tinted glass mirror separating us from the room beyond and wondered who else was watching this interrogation. I waited for my heart to stop racing and decided to give Megan as little information as possible.

  “She appeared in our office yesterday, without an appointment. Before she could explain what was going on, Jake spotted a white sedan with three men inside. They started toward the building before Bitsy could tell us anything other than someone had tried to kill her and she wanted our protection. That’s when Jake and I decided to hide her downstairs, only there was a guy already down there waiting for us when we
got to the bottom of the steps. That’s all I know. Honest.”

  I tried to look scared, which wasn’t a big stretch given Randall Megan’s sudden explosion. I needed the two of them to believe me, at least until I could figure out who was working for the home team and who wasn’t.

  We went back and forth for another twenty minutes with the two agents trying to trip me up and me trying to avoid stepping in deeper shit. I tried to sandwich in a few questions of my own in an attempt to assess whether they were worried about Bitsy or interested more in catching her.

  “Do you think Bitsy had anything to do with her husband’s death?” I asked at one point.

  Shelia gave me a sharp glance and snapped back. “Why, do you think she does?”

  It was a frustrating Mexican standoff that only ended when Spike somehow managed to figure out where I was and decided to put in an appearance. She threw around enough phrases like “show cause hearing” and “habeas corpus” to finally wear Shelia Martin and her cohort into allowing us to leave. This was accompanied by the usual warnings, instructions and miscellaneous crap that always surrounded investigations that weren’t about to involve me as a real suspect but instead were designed to intimidate me into thinking I was in trouble.

  Spike seemed to be enjoying herself, which also troubled me when I recalled overhearing Nina accusing Spike of returning to her old job with the district attorney’s office. What would I do if Spike switched sides?

  Neither of us said a word as we left the police department, reserving our conversation for the warmth and security of Spike’s Landrover.

  “Did Jake send you?” I asked.

  Spike shook her head. She was wearing a cream-colored turtleneck sweater and black wool dress pants. Tiny gold hoop earrings and a light coating of lip gloss were her only accessories. She looked absolutely beautiful and nothing at all like the wild performance artist Nina had bragged about in the early days of their relationship. Of course, there was little chance of Spike reviving her performance art career in tiny Glenn Ford, but she had seemed happy with her decision to return to law in her old hometown. Was this another performance by Spike?