Eating Cupcakes in a Cemetery

by Shelley Dawn Siddall

  Then he said something weird. “Remember to lock the cabinet doors every night.”

  His wife must have complained about the reminder because he said, “I know you know; just do it,” and hung up.

  Gary and Serafino went in separate cars to the Shady Rest Motel, but Bev wasn’t there. The two men waited for a few hours then parted company. Gary didn’t want to think about what Serafino did later; his fear of Serafino prevented him from going back to the motel.

  Maybe with Serafino dead, I can get out from under Helen’s thumb, Gary thought. And then he had the most wonderful thought in the world.

  “I’m going to go see Bev!” he announced to his three cats. They began purring in earnest.

  ***

  Helen Percy walked into her store Saturday morning and immediately calmed down. She felt a real sense of pride when she looked around and saw what she created with a little elbow grease and a whole lot of larceny.

  She loved seeing the friendly waves and hearing her employees say, “Good morning, Mrs. Percy; Nice to see you Mrs. Percy.”

  Helen just loved hearing her name and because of that she filtered out how disingenuous most of those greetings were. She walked up to the cashier line and announced on the public address system, “All team members meet near the couches for the morning huddle.”

  Many of the ‘team members’ continued working but eventually walked over to the big furniture area where ten beautifully tufted blue couches were displayed.

  “Team, by your obvious reluctance to get your butts over here, I can tell you know what today is. The first ever, annual inventory day!”

  A collective groan rose from the dozen or so workers.

  “Now, now, it’s not going to be that bad, because I have a surprise. But first, I want to hand out some appreciation stickers. Actually, they’re not stickers at all but a Cottage Decorating Discounts gift card for twenty bucks!”

  A weak round of applause was given and then each team member received their gift card.

  But Helen was so excited for the next part in the morning meeting; she could barely contain herself. She clapped her hand over her mouth in an attempt to smother a giggle. This so unusual that her workers wondered if she was having a stroke.

  “Here’s the surprise! There is no inventory today! We are simply going to slash all our prices in half and sell our asses off!”

  This time the round of applause was loud and genuine.

  ***

  About two weeks ago at the Shady Rest Motel; nine o’clock in the morning.

  “No thanks,” Bev said, “I’ve got my own religion and here it is.” She held out the bottle to the handsome man standing outside her door. “Do you want a drink?”

  “Bella, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen!”

  Bev leaned against the door frame and took a swig. “How’s that line working for you? And the name is Bev, not Bella.”

  “The color of your hair!” Serafino reached out to touch Bev’s hair.

  “Hands off the merchandise, buster! What the hell is your issue?”

  Serafino continued to smile. “My good friend Gary told me about a beautiful woman he saw the other night, and I just had to see you for myself.”

  Bev grabbed Serafino by the wide lapels of his black trench coat.

  “Gary? Where is Gary? Do you know where he is?”

  “Um no.”

  “Dude. You said he was your good friend. How come you don’t know where he is? Are you lying to me?”

  “No, Bella, I…”

  Bev had it with being called Bella. She had been kicked out of her sister’s place the night before; had driven all night and was exhausted. She slammed the door shut and refused to answer Serafino’s repeated knocks.

  “Challenge accepted,” Serafino said to the door. As he drove away, he had a rare moment of self-doubt. “Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t make that bet with Gary,” he mused.

  ***

  Present day, Saturday noonish.

  “Where is everybody?” Bev said as she walked into Belinda’s empty home. She put the four bottles down in the kitchen and went down to the basement. Nobody there either. The upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms, empty. She looked out the back door; no one.

  “Do not do it,” she told herself. Despite saying that, Bev dropped to her knees and looked under the couch. As she suspected, people were not hiding under the couch, but she found the gun she had dropped there last night. The gun from the shoe belonging to the dead guy in the cemetery.

  “I’ve got a gun from a shoe from a dead guy in the cemetery!” Bev sang, “Maybe I should go be alone with the angel because people find me contrary.” She put a bottle in her purse and of course, sang about it.

  “I’ve got a bottle in my purse for company; but I’ll leave the door unlocked in case Bell gave me her only key.”

  The angel crying over the grave of the child was even more beautiful in the daylight. Bev sat in front of it cross-legged and admired not only the sculpture, but the marble.

  “It looks so warm, not cold at all.”

  Bev shifted her gaze to the whiskey bottle, as yet unopened.

  “You’re there for me my friend, aren’t you? Right there. Right handy. I’m going to try what that therapist said to do, let the memory go one step further.”

  She was fifteen. The pain was so bad. Belinda screamed; Mom call an ambulance. Her mom wouldn’t. Cramps, you want me to call an ambulance because Sister has cramps?

  Bev reached for the bottle. I can’t do it she thought. She looked at the sculpture. The angel was grieving with her.

  You know damn well she’s pregnant. She’s having a baby. Call an ambulance. Look, her water broke. Fine, I’ll call. Hang in there, Bevy. I love you.

  The noise. So much noise. Everybody shouting. Push, push. Pain. Then utter quiet. Then a cry, a sweet cry. Her baby girl.

  “Enough!” Bev shouted and opened the bottle.

  Just before she drank, she remembered. Belinda was there in the delivery room. She said, “I’m proud of you Bevy.”

  ***

  The cab driver readily accepted the extra twenty Suzanne gave him.

  “Lady, this is going to buy you fifteen minutes tops; any longer and I’m gone.”

  The old red Tercel parked illegally in front of 1104 Wayfare Road caused Suzanne to stop and stare.

  “That’s her car!” she said excitedly and ran up the stairs.

  The door to the house was partially open. Go big or go home broke, she told herself.

  She pushed the door hard and ran into an empty living room. Suzanne was relieved but on the other hand, she really wanted a confrontation. Maybe Bev was upstairs?

  “Beverly Nichols, you get down here this instant! This is Suzanne Turcotte and I want my money!”

  Suzanne held her breath. How can the sound of nothing be so loud she wondered. She listened for a full minute then lost her nerve. Face it, Suzanne, she told herself, you’re a loser. Both Vincent and Serafino promised you a new life and you believed them. You’re going to have to face the music with the FBI.

  The taxi honked a warning honk. Suzanne took a last look around the room and saw the bottles of booze through the doorway on the kitchen counter.

  “Fine. At least I’ll have a good drunk before I go to jail.” She ran to the kitchen. She needed something to put the liquor bottles in. She saw a duffle bag on the kitchen table, grabbed it and started to zip it open. She stared inside. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars stared back at her.

  “Forget the booze, I’m out of here.”

  She zipped up the bag and ran like a bat out of hell back to the taxi.

  “Take me to the airport,” she told the driver as she threw a hundred-dollar bill at him.

  “Yes ma’am!”

  “On second thought, we have one stop to make before we head to the airport.”

  She threw another hundred-dollar bill at him and gave him the address of her childhood home. Boy, was her Mother g
oing to be surprised!

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Not that one either,” Sean said as he and Belinda climbed back in the car.

  “Are you guys dating or what?” Belinda asked Hailey and Sean. She saw them exchanging little smiles as Hailey drove from bank to bank.

  “Oh no, Miss Belinda, we are just contemplating marriage, but Miss Hailey must learn Punjabi first, so my cousin does not say she has a face like a goat.”

  “Well that explains it. Maybe it’s not a set of safety deposit box keys; maybe they open a locker?”

  Hailey pulled her car over. “I thought you said they were bank keys.”

  Belinda shrugged. “Heah, I’m drunk. I found them in the heel of a heel; according to Bev anyway.”

  Hailey twisted her head. “What? Why did Bev say he was a heel?”

  “You know Bev. She has this memory that fades in and out. So, she told me Serafino came to her motel room in Seattle about two weeks ago and made a pass at her. She also said she turned him down cold, but he stalked her. Made a scene at work when she wouldn’t go out with him. Apparently, he ranted about never losing a bet and pounded on her desk. They would have called security, but Bev punched him. And with her being so short, you can imagine where that punch landed.”

  Sean pressed his knees together. “My gonads have imagined it already. Did he punch her back?”

  Hailey frowned, but Belinda nodded. “He tried to, but Bev yelled, “Drop, tuck and roll,” and hid under her desk. Her Boss by this time had pointed a gun in Serafino’s direction, so Serafino cursed them out in Italian and left.”

  “If your Sister did kill Serafino, it sounds like she could make a good argument for self-defence.” Hailey said. “If these are not safety deposit box keys; what are they for?”

  “Cupboards?” Sean suggested.

  ***

  She sighed and looked around the room. Tony and Luna had done a nice job cleaning up last night. They had emptied all the mail bags; sorted and counted the money. Bands were placed on each denomination of bill.

  “We’re getting more fifties now then twenties. Interesting,” she said.

  Carmen always wanted a lot of money; that’s why she married Serafino. They were both teenagers when they married; but she knew he was going places. He was a sharp dresser and always had lots of cash to buy Carmen pretty things.

  He had hustled for Helen Percy for years, but it wasn’t the life Carmen wanted. She needed more money to live like those women did in the magazines she read.

  Finally, Serafino struck gold with this charity scam he suddenly dreamed up. The more Carmen thought about it, the more she realized it was probably due to that Suzanne.

  “I still have to deal with her,” she said as she unlocked the large cabinet to the right of the door in her storage unit. As the cabinet doors swung open, she hauled up a duffle bag and rolled it over the threshold. She did the same with the next duffle bag and then used her little stool to climb over the threshold and into an adjoining storage unit.

  Of course, cutting holes in the walls was a big no-no. Serafino initially wanted to use a cutting torch, but Carmen pointed out the sprinkler system in each unit. Painstakingly, they had used a combination of tin snips and a hacksaw to cut the large holes.

  “Why so big?” Carmen had asked at the time.

  “If we get cousin Tony to work for us, he’ll have to get through here. If he doesn’t work out, we’ll have to use Don the Bomb.”

  Serafino had rented the four units in different names, then carefully cut through the walls and bolted the cabinets on the walls and locked them.

  Carmen laughed wryly. “I don’t think we are going to get our deposit back!”

  With Serafino not around for over two weeks, the money was piling up. She knew a lot of it was going to Don the Bomb over in Reno for the printing of the flyers, but still, there was a lot of money all neatly banded and in plain grey duffle bags. Her late husband had ripped off a shipment of duffle bags from Helen by bribing the truck driver.

  They had hundreds of duffle bags just waiting to be filled up.

  Carmen wanted to go and visit the old country and see all the places her parents and grandparents had told her about. She had the money. She and the kids could take off right now, but there was a small matter of a funeral.

  As much as she was mad at Serafino for not dropping the cougar; Suzanne was just supposed to be a means to an end, Carmen was happy that her late husband had planned ahead.

  “Cara mio,” he had said, “this will set us up for life. But we are not going to be greedy; no we are going to be clever; we will leave before the Feds or the Cops or both even know what we have been doing.”

  “But the money, Fino, what do we do with the money?” she had said. At the time, she was blinded by the amount of money that poured in every day.

  “We leave it. I think we’ll go after four months. All our passports are up to date; we’ll go to Italy for a few months and see what happens here. In the meantime, Don Baum will collect the money for as long as he wants to gamble on this enterprise and send us some.”

  Carmen had screamed at the word ‘some’. It took several hours before she calmed down and several glasses of wine.

  Now she was alone with four children and one on the way. Maybe she should just go now? She must have millions. The storage unit to the right now held about forty-three heavy duffle bags. Nah, she couldn’t leave yet. She’d need Don to convert the money for her to euros.

  She then opened the other cabinets. They too were access to the other storage units Serafino had rented.

  One was for Vincent to come and collect his share. It was empty, so Vincent was right on top of his collection game. The left cabinet gave access to Don the Bomb’s percentage. It had a half dozen duffle bags in it. Don was probably busy; but he would collect his share eventually.

  Carmen looked at the key ring. She supposed she should get duplicates made; she didn’t know where Fino’s keys were.

  Her late husband’s wallet, keys, phone and even his shoes were missing.

  The thing Carmen was most incensed about though, was Fino’s diamond earring. What sort of sick criminal murdered a man and then took his earring?

  She knew some people might have considered Serafino a bad man; he did hurt people and killed a few. But they all had it coming to them and they knew it. Serafino bested them pure and simple; there was no way the gamblers were going to be able to get one over on him. Especially not the dead ones. Even their relatives knew better and just chalked up the death to the price of life in the fast lane.

  Carmen could not figure out why Serafino was killed. Money wasn’t missing; only Vincent and Don the Bomb had access to their own storage unit. Carmen certainly hadn’t pissed anybody off.

  She looked around the storage unit and saw two chairs close together. What’s cooking with Luna and Tony? Could Tony have killed Serafino? Tony was a big man; he could have easily overpowered her husband and shot him. But Serafino had a gun too; and was a lot faster than Tony.

  Plus Carmen knew Tony was like a big lumbering St. Bernard dog; loyal to Serafino to a fault. It wasn’t Tony. No; it was some twisted sick mind who had killed the love of her life.

  She looked at her watch. Time to go to the school and pick up Nella from detention. Again.

  ***

  “Why thank you Leandra, how considerate!”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Millar. I figured you probably needed a little pick me up, so I made this Kale smoothie for you. Taste it and tell me what you think.”

  Vincent Millar took a small sip. He managed to smother his gag reflex and complimented his new assistant. “Well! Isn’t that something. I’ve never tasted anything like it.”

  She beamed back at him.

  “What I don’t understand though, is how you made it in your office. We don’t have a kitchen in there.”

  “I brought my blender from home and all the ingredients in a cooler. I also have a fresh batch of kefir if you w
ant some.” She walked slowly to the door knowing Vincent was watching her the entire way. Leandra turned and gave him a wink.

  “Call me if you need anything.”

  As soon as she left, Vincent closed one eye and stuck out his tongue. The smoothie went down the bathroom sink. Vincent made himself a scotch and soda and settled in behind his desk.

  He liked Leandra even if she had a weird name and brought weird food to the office. What was it yesterday? Something green again. She was filling in while Suzanne was away.

  Away? Hell. Kidnapped. And he had paid the money right away; what was the hold up? The FBI were investigating, and Agent Jakob Kim always said the same thing; ‘we’re following up on some leads, but nothing concrete as yet.’ He missed having Suzanne around, but he had to admit that Leandra was a lot easier on the eyes. And so willing to help.

  Suzanne had been getting a little cranky these past few months; so insistent that Vincent give her a date for when he was going to cut ties with his wife.

  As if that would happen. Vincent chuckled. He congratulated himself on stringing Suzanne along all these years. Every time she started to nag, he arranged for them to go on a small vacation or bought her something shiny or new clothes. It used to shut her up for months, but lately nothing was working.

  It was a good thing he was getting that money from Serafino so paying the ransom was easy peasy lemon squeezy. Still, it was tough to part with four hundred thousand dollars. He knew the kidnappers had asked for five, but he only had four on hand. Besides, who were they going to complain to?

  Vincent was worried that he might have jeopardized Suzanne’s life and he was just at the point where he was going to tell Jakob Kim about short-changing the kidnappers when Suzanne phoned.

  What a stroke of luck! She sounded okay. He hoped she would be back at work soon and things could go back to the way the were, but hopefully without the nagging. Otherwise, there was always Leandra.