Alpaca My Bags

by Violet Patton

  “Ladies. Can I have your attention?” I recognized Yonna. She snapped her fingers like she was training seals.

  “Oh, good grief,” I whispered in Ann’s ear. “We got the same suit.”

  A sleek specimen, Yonna could strum a guitar with her abs. She made my mottled green swimsuit look good.

  Madonna giggled. “Y’all are twins.” She made fun of my accent and body type in one brief exclamation.

  Yonna glared. “You two? Are you listening? I’m talking about pool safety.”

  Madonna shrank back, guilty of not listening, but I lifted my chin. “Yes’m.”

  “Considering the recent unfortunate incident. I want to make sure everyone understands the danger in water.”

  “Dan shoulda heard this speech,” I whispered, but added sorry immediately. I can be indelicate, but Madonna shoulder bumped me, forgiving my faux pas. My uncouth behavior meant no harm, unless a gal thought chasing my Sweetie Bastard was a good idea, then things would get ugly.

  Thirty minutes later, I climbed out of the swimming pool, worked over like a rag on a scrub board. My heart quivered way past just beating hard. I sank onto a chaise lounge because my wobbly knees felt like wet biscuit dough.

  If Philly wasn’t too worn out, he’d need strength to carry my dead body to the crematorium. Does the Oasis have its own funeral home? I should ask Amelia that’d get her goat. I bet Sunny City has its own.

  Ann sat on another lounge toweling off. The hot sun beat down. “You using sunscreen?”

  “Nope.” I dried fast. Maybe Philly wouldn’t need to cart me to the crematorium; the sun would dehydrate my dead body in no time. As a wrinkly piece of hide, he’d prop me in the corner for company, when and if he ever missed me.

  “Did you bring water?” Madonna asked coming over. She wore a floppy wide-brimmed sun hat and a cover-up over her swimming suit.

  “Nope. Forgot.” I shrugged. She handed me her open bottle. “Here take mine.”

  I drank after her which officially made us spit sisters.

  Ann cranked up a poolside umbrella. “Cover your legs with your towel.”

  I didn’t move. She covered them for me.

  Madonna sat on the edge of my chaise lounge. “Even though you feel overwhelmed, you’re doing fine. Most people never get used to the heat. Especially the Canadians. You’re lucky being from Texas.”

  “Yeah, you think so?”

  “Maybe we should sign you up for an inside activity,” Ann said.

  “With air conditioning.” Madonna chuckled, nodding. “Hey, here comes Amelia.”

  She approached our group. “There you are. I saw you from the orientation room. Wanted to check on you.”

  “Amelia.” I nodded. “I’m fine.”

  Madonna shared a look with her I didn’t understand.

  “I heard about your bed on the carport.” She clucked, shaking her head. “Do you have time to go over the binder today?”

  “I’d... sure.” I glanced at Ann and she smiled. She has been gossiping. “I left it on the counter at home.”

  My mouth said home, but my heart said San Fran. Our house hadn’t been an opulent mansion by the bay, but I made it mine by decorating with simple touches of Texas memorabilia. Over the years, sleek urban habitats with glass panel walls and sheet metal doors replaced older homes like ours. Slowly, the neighborhood transformed from a sixties hippy commune to a hipster-dot-com techie monstrosity of metal girder garages that housed electric cars. Philly and I hadn’t belonged in California if we ever had. He’s hoping after we get acclimated, we’ll belong in the Oasis, feeling at home like we did in Texas.

  “I could go get it and come back?” Don’t lie. You’re gonna get caught.

  Going back for another run-through of the binder wasn’t in my immediate plans.

  Even from here, my man’s rumbling belly said feed me. If I didn’t feed my empty manhole soon, things would go awry. Things being he’d have an epic cussing meltdown. He kicks objects when he’s hungry. There’s a popular term for his affliction—hangry. Fits Philly to a T.

  “How about after lunch? I can meet you out front like before. The complex is a maze of unknowns until you learn your way.”

  Saved. I would feed Philly and become indoctrinated in the rules and regulations.

  I followed Ann and Madonna’s golf carts home and parked on the road. Debris filled the carport. They looked at the pile, sighed and disappeared into their cool homes.

  “What are you doing?” I asked Philly.

  “Demo?” He cranked a twist top off a beer. I climbed from the golf cart. He pointed with his middle finger. “Wayne said to park over yonder. There’s an empty house.”

  “Why?” I snorted. “You’re full of it. What’s happening?”

  “We’re preempting the remodel. Gutting out the bedroom.”

  I recognized the mirrored closet doors leaning against the carport railings.

  “What the? Why did you do that?” Shards of the shattered mirror littered the carport, and the broken doors lay in pieces. If I were religious, I would’ve genuflected. The only thing worse than a broken mirror was a black cat crossing your path on the street.

  “Good Lord. Now you’ve done it. We have seven years’ bad luck.”

  Philly swilled beer ignoring me. Like goatsuckers and other monsters that go bump in the night, superstitions and wives’ tales, he doesn’t believe in making bad luck.

  “We’re gonna rebuild it with the studs.” He held his beer and pointed with his middle finger.

  I wanted to grab his finger and twist it off. With my perfected saccharine tone, I talked out my nose. “Is Wayne a general contractor? Don’t we need a demo permit?”

  He grimaced because he broke a rule. His lies show on his face like a wart and his belly grumbled, warning me of his coming hangry fit.

  “Did you eat Cheerios?”

  “Nope, ain’t ate yet.”

  “It’s almost noon. Why haven’t you had breakfast?” That was a stupid question, he couldn’t find food in a greasy Bob’s Burger bag.

  I squatted next to the pile of broken drawers beside the broken mirror doors. “Did you find a book? A photo album in the drawers?”

  “Yeah, what of it?” He glanced at the pile. “How d’you know it was there?”

  “I found it the other day.” The days blurred together. I couldn’t remember which day I found it, but the other day sufficed. “It’s a wedding album. I thought I’d return it to its rightful owner.”

  “It’s on the kitchen counter.” He pointed at the hole in the wall where the exit door had been.

  “I’m making lunch. I gotta change out of this suit.” I stood up, wiggling and pulling the skimpy suit from an indelicate spot.

  After I changed clothes, I spread mayo on bread, glancing at the album. Wanda wasn’t missing her wedding album, it would wait.

  He wolfed his ham and Swiss cheese sandwich and the remaining chunks of cantaloupe. I handed him an open bag of stale potato chips, and he mowed through several handfuls before he gained any sense. Two beers later, with his feet propped on the railing he fell asleep. Carb overload took effect quickly. These days it didn’t take much to knock him out.

  I left him to nap and went inside to tackle the boxes in the living room. Two boxes held old bakeware and crystal whatnots. Nothing I wanted. If I baked a lemon cake, I’d need a new loaf pan that didn’t have baked on grease stains.

  I found my glass sun tea jug, but it had cracked. I chucked it into the trash pile. Philly didn’t blink. Making sun tea in cloudy San Fran was next to impossible. The blazing hot Texas sun makes the best tea.

  Here’s my simple recipe: Use four family-size Luzianne tea bags—that’s the best brand of tea on the planet—two cups of plain white sugar, none of that fake stuff, and a gallon jar with a dispenser at the bottom. Fill with water and set that combination in the sun. After it cooks in the sun a while, stir the sugar until it dissolves, add plenty of crunchy ice and fresh picked min
t—viola, the best tea ever.

  I found a gallon plastic container in another box that would do until I bought a new glass jar. Glass refracts the sun drawing the deep tea flavor best. I filled and set it in a sunny corner of the carport, the tea bags brewed immediately.

  Arizona sun might make better sweet iced tea than the Texas sun. Go figure.

  Back inside I tackled a few more crates, but other than old photos of Mama and Daddy there wasn’t much I wanted in the crates. We had wasted a lot of time sorting, packing and shipping that junk.

  I carried more stuff outside and found Wayne, his pencil stuck charmingly behind his ear. He was starting to grow on me. He and Alice might become our first new friends in a quarter century. He stared at the stripped trailer wall and glanced up. “Hey you.”

  On the veranda, Philly snored with his head back and mouth open. I didn’t glare or look peeved, but whispered. “Be right back.” Waking him up from his after-lunch nap was like asking a bear to come out of hibernation in February.

  When I brought out another empty crate, they were conferring beside the torn-out wall.

  “Hey Bunny, come look at what we found.” Food worked a miracle, Philly looked almost human again.

  “Sure.” I could be nice for twelve seconds, if that long. “What is it?”

  They had peeled away the aluminum paneling on the outside wall which set directly behind the fridge. Before these two amateurs finished demoing the place, we wouldn’t have a place to live, as it was, we barely had a roof over our heads.

  Wayne cocked his head at the hole and a bubble of sweat dropped off his chin.

  “What’re you looking at?”

  Philly pointed with his middle finger again. “Right there in the insulation.”

  I leaned in close and a willie shivered up my spine. “It’s... it’s a butcher knife.”

  How odd? It wasn’t big enough to chop off a goatsucker’s head, but it would do significant damage.

  Wayne pursed his lips. “We gotta pull the fridge out. It musta fallen behind it.”

  I hunkered over peering closer. “No, it didn’t fall. It’s been—it’s got an ugly stain on it.”

  My eyelids fluttered. Was I looking at a bloody knife? Incredulous.

  “Wayne don’t you dare touch a thing. You hear me?” I righted myself. Blood rushed from my head and I went woozy. “I’m calling security.”

  Someone hid a bloody butcher knife in the wall behind our park model’s refrigerator. Had Wanda’s murderer stashed the knife in the wall? I wanted to know more before those two ol’ geezers fouled up the crime scene with their greasy paw prints.

  Chapter Twenty

  True Confession

  Mack Riggs squirmed looking at the knife and called the sheriff. The deputy sheriff came out, bent over at our wall and scratched his head. He and Mack deliberated in whispers on the far corner of the carport in the shade. I stood with my hands on my hips. The sheriff stepped aside and made a phone call. He came back with a roll of police caution tape and taped off the door hole. One of the two amateur builders had broken the door hinges, and that door wasn’t going back onto the mangled doorframe.

  Leaving, the deputy sheriff said, “Don’t touch a thing.”

  I nodded a told you so look at Wayne and Philly.

  Mack Riggs sent his subordinate security guy—a different subordinate than the one who brought us back after the Caddy died—to stand guard over the butcher knife. The new guy looked uneasy standing next to the gutted wall.

  Word got out about our new problem. Ann came over with her own folding lawn chair, understanding our lack of proper seating for the circus. I served her crisp, sweet iced tea from the plastic sun tea jug. Madonna had gone to church and when she came home, she joined us on our veranda.

  Everyone knew who the Winters were; we’re the ones that bought the haunted Oasis park model. Joke’s on us. Several residents whispered about Wanda’s demise, others told stories of seeing her walk through the art room, her favorite hangout while living and dead.

  Passersby stopped to gawk and speculated about who or why someone would hide a bloody knife in the wall behind the fridge. The crowds came and went. I ran out of iced tea and we girls giggled about the knife, but it wasn’t funny. Philly huffed, getting irked and went to see a man about a horse some place else besides our bathroom. He drove away in the golf cart. Wayne vanished, and we had the place all to ourselves.

  “I need more ice,” I said, making an excuse to fetch the wedding album.

  When I plopped it onto the patio table, they both eyed the old thing. I waited a few seconds hoping they’d ask about it, but they didn’t.

  Time for true confessions. “So, tell me about Wanda?”

  Ann shrugged, eyeing Madonna. It wasn’t a good look. She used that dreaded look that said the truth would hurt and said, “Ah... well.”

  Madonna helped herself to a beer from the ice chest and cranked off the twist top. She swilled a long draw before saying, “I fibbed about her. She’s sorta dead. Sorry.”

  “Sorta?” My brows crunched together.

  “Guess I didn’t mention it either,” Ann said, adding a shrug. They had collaborated about not talking about Wanda.

  I’m so grateful I hadn’t mentioned Wanda’s visitation. They’d think me a special Texas nut.

  “Before I came to live here, she lived in your house. The park was still new. Maybe ’99 or 2000,” Madonna said. “Maybe ‘04 was when she was murdered.”

  Ann said, “August of ’04. I remember it well. So hot.”

  “You say 2004.” So, David wasn’t telling the truth. He said she passed away six years ago. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  “Did they kill her with a butcher knife?” Dumb question. A hidden butcher knife only meant one thing—murder.

  Tsking, Ann said, “Her murder went unsolved.”

  “Nobody bothered to tell Philly about this?” No wonder the house sold at such a bargain price. In today’s real estate prices, it was practically free.

  “I don’t know how she died. People say weird stuff happens all the time. Renters hated living there. I thought they had an overactive imagination,” Madonna said, sipping beer.

  “What renters? Why are her clothes still hanging in the closet?”

  “Many park models rent fully furnished,” Madonna offered. I nodded, understanding renting a furnished place, but for heaven’s sake, ditch the old clothes.

  Too creepy. I glanced back and forth observing their causal chattering gossip. Nothing about Wanda was chatty or causal. They weren’t taking my Wanda situation seriously.

  “The investigation never turned up a weapon.” Ann added. “But she was—hacked to pieces.”

  She and Mrs. Coker’s cat? A double murder. “Oh, for goodness’ sake. Philly’s gonna keel over. Why didn’t—”

  “Now, Bunny,” Madonna said. “Listen. Let’s let bygones be bygones.”

  “Bygones? I’m gonna sue.” With my legs crossed, I jiggled so hard the veranda vibrated.

  “Who? All of Wanda’s people are dead,” Ann said.

  “The Oasis. That’s who. Somebody help me? I’m living in a haunted park model.”

  “Now Bunny, we are all living in somebody else’s house. If you buy now, unless you remove the old park model and install a new one, there are stories about each place.” Madonna waved holding the neck of her empty beer bottle. “I bet there isn’t a single house left that somebody hasn’t died in.”

  Ann added, “Maybe... he knew and didn’t tell you.”

  I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw squeaked. If he knew... I’m gonna... he knows how much I get the willies. Now every time I walk across the park model’s floor, I’m walking over a crime scene. That’s a willie waiting in the wings.

  “This isn’t a normal neighborhood,” Madonna said.

  I huffed. “You can say that again. I know, I know everybody is dying to get out of here.”

  Madonna chuckled. “That’s the truth.”

/>   A car pulled up beside the carport. Two hostile looking women climbed out, pulled on surgical gloves and headed for the gaping hole in the side of my place without sayin’ howdy or nothing. They leaned their big butts over at the hole.

  “Excuse me. That’s the crime scene investigators,” the timid guard blushed. “I’m gonna ask you ladies to move over there.” He nodded at Madonna’s house like he knew she lived there.

  We stopped talking and stared at the poor kid. Guess he was eavesdropping on our crazy dead cat and bloody knife talk.

  “No problem.” Ann stood, holding the chair behind her butt and walked to Madonna’s carport and sat in the chair.

  “C’mon,” Madonna motioned toward her place. I put Wanda’s wedding album under my arm, and we hustled carrying the ice chest between us.

  I had no sooner settled on Madonna’s fancy cushioned veranda chair, when out on the street a car stopped and a man yelled out the car window. “Hey you.”

  Then he spoke gibberish to the woman with him and put the car into reverse.

  Madonna giggled. “Ah so, the Canadians have arrived.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Roadblocks

  Minette and Hugo Ettiene picked the wrong day to arrive at the Oasis. She and her Canadian man exchanged heated words. From the look on Madonna and Ann’s faces, none of us could understand them their tiny argument.

  They got out of their car and sweat poured off him and Minette wilted. They looked nice enough, nothing like foreigner goatsuckers.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Hugo shouted in English and his face reddened. “Garbage. The unit needs conditioning.” He stomped into the furrow mumbling French swear words

  Madonna said, “So glad your back. This is Bunny Winters. New resident across the street.”

  Minette offered her hand. “So nice to meet you. Do not pay attention to my husband. He’s always mad about something.”

  “Likewise.” Agreeing, I shook her hand.

  In San Fran, I had met plenty of strangers, but she was my first Canadian. I don’t know how I’ve missed ever meeting a neighbor from the north.