“You can’t tell an old lady what to do,” Mable said. “Besides, all the stress of being out for too long isn’t good for my brain function. Tiffany! Could you drive me back to my apartment in Venice, please?”
“You sweet thing.” Tiffany took her by the arm and steadied her. “You don’t live there anymore, remember? You live at Helping Hands now.”
Mable peered up at her and blinked. “Did you still want to buy the apartment building from me?”
“You sold it to me four years ago, honey. But yes, I agree, all of this is enough excitement for today.” She put an arm around Mable’s shoulders and steadied her as they shuffled toward the Cadillac’s passenger door.
“Did the Betty White look-alike kill Mack?” Julia hissed.
“Yes.” Annie gave her head a shake. “When we both held the pen I was flooded with cold, deep-seated anger, and murderous thoughts. I could easily have killed someone. That usually only happens when I drive too long in L.A.’s crappy traffic.”
Grady inhaled and one hand flew to his chest. “You had a killer empathic clue!”
“I remember why that apartment we were in looked so familiar!” Mack tugged on Annie’s arm as she tried to shrug him off. “Mack visited his Aunt Mable there a couple of months ago and even gave her a complimentary WEPOC refrigerator magnet.” He pointed to the red Caddie. “That’s my grandmother’s car and more importantly, my favorite car in the whole world. I’ve been trying to buy this classic beaut from her, forever. I mean, jeez, it should have been mine all along.”
“Miss Mable McManus!” Annie said. “How long had your nephew, Mack, been dogging you to buy that car?” She pointed at the Cadillac. “How many phone calls, Hallmark cards, e-mails, refrigerator magnets, tickling sessions, floral bouquets, flattery, and endless nonsensical babbling did you have to endure?”
“I can’t hear you, dear. Take me home, Tiffany. I don’t want to miss Matlock. I love Andy Griffith. He’s so clever and handsome.”
“Why didn’t you go with your nephew, Mack, to the WEPOC banquet, Mable? Or maybe you did?” Annie glared at her. “Maybe you just showed up a little late, and a whole lot angry. Maybe you were so furious, you gunned that car’s engine a few times and decided to run him over.”
“Oh, Mr. Bubeck. Why is this person who I just met being so mean to me?” Mable asked as her voice broke and she trembled.
Bob shook his finger at Annie. “You need to back off, young lady, and leave this poor woman alone. Where are your manners?” He turned back to the Caddie. “Let me help you, Tiffany.” He sprinted a few feet ahead of them and opened the car door. They both helped Mable inside.
Two more police sirens rang in the near distance.
“I’ll be in touch, Mable. I’m so glad you accepted my offer to buy this gorgeous car,” Bob said. “Happy to take it off your hands.” He closed the door and smiled at her.
“I’ll miss this car, but it’s probably for the best,” Mable said. “I’m not even sure I should be driving, anymore. I get so confused at times.”
“That lizard’s buying my car!” Mack exclaimed. “Look at its beautiful details. The grille, and the pristine red paint job. It’s the perfect ride!”
Annie peered at the convertible. “But it’s not the perfect ride. Do as I say, Mack, and do it now!”
“A black and white squad car just pulled into the lot, Annie!” Grady exclaimed. “The police are here.”
“Thank God,” Julia huddled next to Devin.
“It’s about time,” Annie said. “Lay on the ground next to the left front wheel.”
“No,” Julia said. “I’ll do a lot of things for you, Annie. But I won’t do that.”
Grady and Mack threw themselves on the ground next to the wheel.
“Not you, Grady!” Annie said.
He popped up and took a few steps back. “Sorry!”
“Why is Mack down here?” Mack asked as he lay next to the wheel.
Tiffany started the car and flipped to the Golden Oldies rock radio station.
“This is scaring me, Annie,” Mack said. “What if I get run over, again?”
“Calm down. It’ll be okay.” Annie leaned in close and alternated between peering at his shirt and the car.
Tiffany revved the car’s engine.
“What are you doing?” Julia asked. “She’s going to run you over!”
“I need to see if the tread marks on your shirt match the treads on the tire,” Annie said.
“Do they?” Mack asked.
“That would be a yes.” Annie jumped to standing and planted herself in front of the Caddie.
“Move it,” Tiffany said from behind the wheel as her bumper made contact with Annie’s legs. “I need to get Mable home.”
“Unfortunately, Mable’s not going home tonight,” Annie said as she backed up a few inches. “Because Mable McManus killed her nephew Mack McManus.” She turned and pointed to the uniformed policewomen headed toward them. “I’m going to let L.A.’s finest figure it out.”
“You’re a crazy young lady,” Mable said. “I have no idea what you’re even talking about. I think you need to be on meds. Speaking of, I need to take my high blood pressure medicines at nine p.m. on the dot. Let’s go, Tiffany!”
“Really, Miss McManus?” Annie asked. “You’ve known Mack for thirty-nine years and you have no idea what I’m talking about? The fender on your car is dented. It has dark red stains on it that look like dried blood. There are little tiny pieces of a cheap poly/cotton blend embedded in your car’s front left tire that most likely match the shirt that Mack wore the night to the WEPOC banquet. And,” Annie said. “I do believe I spotted two buttons from said cheap men’s dress shirt embedded into the tread of your car’s left front wheel. It’s funny how your memory is so fuzzy and yet you remember the exact time you need to take your meds, as well as when Matlock is on.”
Two female police officers approached. One had her hand on her gun. The other appeared to be the good cop. “My name’s Officer Luisa Rodriguez. Why don’t you turn off the car, ma'am, and let’s talk about the situation here.”
Tiffany grumbled and turned off the car.
Mable fainted and collapsed in the passenger seat.
“Call an ambulance!” Tiffany screamed.
Officer Rodriguez leapt into the car and checked her vitals. “She’s breathing, but her pulse is a little rapid.”
“She’s faking!” Mack yelled.
I do believe I must prepare to pass to the Afterlife with Mack. I’m so glad I could help you, Dearest Diary, make a difference in someone’s life. No, you don’t have to thank me.
My best,
Dr. Derrick Fuller, Ph.D.
Cheesecake Cookies
by Margaret Dieman
Ingredients and Directions:
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
½ cup chopped nuts (pick those which you love)
¼ cup sugar
One 8 oz. package cream cheese
1 egg
2Tbsp. milk
½ tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
Cream butter with brown sugar in a small mixing bowl.
Add flour and nuts.
Mix to a crumb mixture.
Reserve one cup for topping.
Press the remainder into the bottom of an 8” pan and bake in 350 degree oven for 12 – 15 minutes until lightly browned.
Blend sugar with cream cheese in a small bowl until smooth.
Add egg, mild, lemon juice and vanilla.
Beat well.
Spread over baked crust.
Sprinkle with the reserved crumb mixture.
Bake in 350 degree oven for twenty minutes.
Cool and cut into 2” squares.
Chapter 30
“Paradise by the Dashboard Light”
ANNIE
Dear Diary,
Here we go again. The paramedics arrived, took Mable’s vitals, transferred her to
a gurney, put her in the back of an ambulance and took her to the hospital. A few more black and whites showed up. The officers determined there was no immediate threat to anyone on the scene. Notes were taken and people were questioned.
The lab techs showed up to check out the Caddie for prints, and tire marks, scratches, and DNA.
Mack sat in the Caddie and pretended to drive.
One officer ‘chaperoned’ us as we waited here on site, for the L.A.P.D. Detectives to show up and question us.
I was thinking this probably meant my boyfriend, the very delicious, as well as suspicious, Detective Raphael Campillio would be arriving shortly and find me at yet another crime scene. Oh yay! If he hadn’t decided to dump me already, tonight would most likely be the turning point. “Has this been the suckiest year, or what?” I said.
“Not for me.” Julia cuddled with Devin.
“Not for me.” Grady had flipped open his laptop and resumed working on his novel.
“Not for me.” Tiffany scrolled through her iPhone. “I invested in Flada and the stock just sky-rocketed.”
“Not for me,” Bob Bubeck said. “My deadbeat son-in-law is dead, not by my hands might I add, and I just bought the car of my dreams.”
“Good luck on acquiring that car, Bob,” I said. “It might take a while as it is evidence in a homicide.”
“I’m happy to wait,” he said.
My breath caught in my throat as the impossibly gorgeous Detective Raphael Campillio strode up to me with a healthy dose of concern on his face.
“Let’s talk over here,” he said and gestured to a picnic bench on the side of the tiny restaurant. We walked over and sat down. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine. Although I really think the great aunt did it. You’re going to find evidence all over that car that’s going to match with Mack’s clothes and DNA. Are you mad at me?” I asked.
“You’re involved in yet another murder. I don’t really understand why you’re such a magnet for this stuff.”
“I knew Mack, Raphael. He was my college boyfriend. I had to at least try and find out who killed him. I owed him that.”
Raphael sighed. “Okay. We’ll talk about it later.” He stood up and we started walking back.
“Just tell me now. I need to know. Are you going to break up with me?” I asked. “Because after tonight, I just can’t take the suspense of not knowing. I’d rather you just do it cleanly and then I can go home and cry and write in my diary and order a pizza, and then cry some more.”
He stopped in his tracks. “Do you want to break up with me?”
“Don’t be silly. I lo….I really like you,” I said.
He took my hand and squeezed it. “I really like you, too,” he said and turned. “Ms. Tiffany Tominski, I need to ask you a few questions.”
She sighed, stood up, and walked past him toward the picnic table.
Raphael swiveled and gazed at me. “Do you know what’s better than having a pretty girlfriend, who’s funny, clever, and a baker?”
“No,” I said.
“A pretty girlfriend who’s funny, clever, a baker, and likes to solve murders,” he said, winked, and walked toward Tiffany.
“Aah!” I did a quick happy dance when he was far enough away and his back was turned from me.
Strangely enough, at that exact moment, “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” by Meatloaf blasted from the Caddie’s radio.
“Who turned the car back on?” I asked.
“Perhaps I did it with the power of my intention,” Derrick said and hopped into the Caddie’s back seat.
Mack cocked his head and stared at the dashboard. “This used to be my favorite song.”
I glanced around me. Bright lights craned high above the parking lot. Lights from the various classic cars flashed on and off as one by one their drivers were cleared by the police and allowed to leave the lot. I gazed at the twinkly lights on the hills from the properties that wound their way up the Santa Monica Mountains. I saw the lights that sparkled over the Christmas tree lot. And most importantly, my gaze was pulled toward the Caddie’s dashboard light.
“It’s time, Mack,” I said. “It’s time to go to your version of the Afterlife.”
“Oh, my God,” he said. “Mack thinks that it seems so fitting, but Mack’s scared.”
“I know,” I said. “But I think this is your way. It fits you. You’ve got to give it a try.”
“What about me?” Derrick asked. “Am I simply sloppy leftovers?”
I shrugged. “Go ahead, and try, Derrick.”
“Goodbye, Annie,” Mack said. “I’m sorry I poisoned Theodore. I’ll always remember you fondly, even though you were mean to me on multiple occasions.”
“Stern, Mack,” I said. “Not mean.”
“You say poTAY-toe,” Mack said. “I say poTAH-toe.”
“Take care,” I waved at him.
He tried to tickle me one last time but I dodged him. His body vaporized into a blue mist and gently diffused through the tiny cracks and crevices into the Caddie’s dashboard. I started coughing up half a lung and waved a hand in front of my face. Phew, the mist’s new car smell was overwhelmingly strong! The Caddie’s’s headlights turned on and its brights flashed for a few seconds. And I do believe Mack ‘The Man’ McManus entered the Afterlife in that brief, shining moment.
Mission accomplished!
“I’m still here.” Derrick frowned, his arms crossed, and he tapped his toe on the car’s floor like a Chihuahua with a bad case of fleas.
“Yeah. But you did good,” I said. “You mentored someone to the other side. Brownie points, Derrick. They add up.”
He grumbled, hopped out of the car, and walked off the lot.
And that, Dear Diary, concludes tonight’s craziness.
I don’t know what will come of this. Is Mable guilty? Did Mack really pass to the Afterlife? Will Raphael stay with me? What will happen when Mom arrives tomorrow? Can Devin Dylan really find me a car? Time will tell. But I do know this. You have helped, tremendously, Diary.
Thank you.
Xo,
Annie
Official Music Video for "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" by Meatloaf
Chapter 31
Psych Hospital Ward
MABLE ‘THE GREAT AUNTIE” McMANUS
Dear Diary,
I’m reporting in from the Psych Hospital Ward for the criminally insane on Thanksgiving. I don’t mind the screaming; it reminds me of living in my former apartment in the Venice ’hood.
I usually pen a little snippet in you every night, but you are currently resting in my home at Helping Hands Assisted Living. Therefore, I’m just going to close my eyes, and pretend that I’m writing in your welcoming pages.
As you know, there’s always ‘one’ in every family. The ‘one’ in my family was Mack McManus.
Mack was my sister Millie’s grandson. He was cute when he was little: babbling nonsense as he toddled around after Tonka toys, and building play cars with Legos.
I attended most of his grade-school plays when I still lived in Wisconsin. He always had the smaller, non-speaking roles—third spear-carrier on the left, a townsman in Brigadoon, the silent but menacing Nazi guard in The Sound of Music.
But during opening night performance in the latter, he started ad-libbing, talking over the other actors when he wasn’t supposed to be talking at all. When he interrupted the very emotional breakup scene between Liesl and Rolf, the play’s director literally grabbed him by the scruff of his uniform and yanked him off stage. I’ll never forget watching Millie’s face pop bright red. I thought she was going to have a heart attack on the spot.
Eventually I grew weary of the brutal Midwestern winters, packed my bags, and moved to Venice, California. I had squirreled away enough money to purchase a small apartment building in the ’hood and I resided in a decent-sized one bedroom on the second floor.
Millie and I talked every day on the phone. She continued to dote on her on
ly grandchild, Mack, sending him birthday presents, Christmas packages, Easter baskets, 4th of July celebratory gifties, and Halloween surprises. I listened to her common complaints about him as the years ticked by.
“I just don’t understand it,” Millie would say. “Such a nice, young man, my own flesh and blood, and yet he never thanks me.”
“He also doesn’t write or visit you,” I said.
“But he calls me on my birthday,” she said. “At least he did three years ago.”
“Oh, Millie,” I said. “Youth is wasted on the young. They think we owe it to them. They don’t understand that a simple ‘Thank you’ on their part would make our day, let alone month. Maybe you should talk to his parents about his bad manners.”
“No. I don’t want to stir that pot,” she’d say. “Nothing good can come from telling your adult children how to parent their own. Besides, Mack’s a grown man. Graduating college. Just got engaged. Perhaps he’ll start his own family one of these days. Maybe his children will be nicer to me if I’m a great-grandmother instead of just a grandmother.”
I doubted it, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.
“Well then,” I said. “If you’re not willing to speak up, you need to let it go.”
“You’re right. You’re always right when it comes to these things,” she said.
Mack’s insensitivity was part of our conversation for almost thirty years including Millie’s first birthday after she’d moved into Assisted Living. Mack never bothered sending a card, calling, or visiting her. I think a little piece of her died that day. The rest of her died about a month later of a massive coronary.
I travelled from Venice, California back to frozen, snowy Wisconsin for however long it would take to bury my sister, and help settle her affairs. We were a small group that huddled around that very cold, gravesite a few days after Thanksgiving: a few of Millie’s friends, some folks who knew her from Assisted Living, her two kids, and their spouses. But no Mack. He was too busy checking out classic cars at a fancy auto show in Vegas.
The Annie Graceland Cupcakes Cozy Mystery Box Set #2: Books 5 - 7 Page 14