Did she want to get shot again? I glared at her.
“What?” said my idiot sister. “She can’t think she’ll be able to shoot us and get away with it.”
There was a door to the parking lot steps from the door to the lounge. Cassie could shoot us and disappear before anyone figured out where the shots had come from. At this range, not even an incompetent murderer could miss.
Aunt Sis slipped through the bathroom door. If Cassie wasn’t glaring at Marjorie with such singular focus, she would’ve seen her.
“You cut my brakes,” I said. Please let Aunt Sis get away. Please.
“I thought Marjorie would be in the car.” Thank God Cassie’s gaze remained locked on Marjorie. If Aunt Sis hurried, she’d be able to slip out of the lounge and go for help. “You know, no one in this town ever made any secret that they looked down on me. Just imagine how they would have treated me if they knew my father owned an auto repair shop. Yes, I cut your brakes.”
Why wasn’t Aunt Sis sneaking out?
Any second, Cassie was going to see Aunt Sis in the mirror.
“Did you notice the bruise on your husband’s jaw?” I asked. “Marjorie’s husband gave him that. There is nothing between Kenneth and Marjorie anymore.”
“That might be true. But you figured it out. You knew I’d tried to kill Marjorie.” Cassie cocked her gun. “You knew I’d killed—”
Aunt Sis leapt. The two of them fell to the floor in a tangle of caftan and .22 caliber gun.
“Run!” I said to Marjorie. “Go get help.”
My idiot sister just stood there with her mouth hanging open.
Bang!
The shot echoed in my ears.
Cassie pulled away from my aunt.
Aunt Sis clutched her stomach.
Cassie struggled to her feet and backed toward the door.
“Sorry about this, Ellison.”
Cassie cocked the gun.
My heart took flight, rising to my throat. Grace was going to be an orphan. I hadn’t said goodbye, just left a note telling her I’d see her later. Had I even signed it, I love you? I held up my hands. “Cassie, please don’t—”
Something black hit Cassie on the side of the head and she collapsed onto the floor.
A Ferragamo-shod foot kicked the gun out of her hand.
Marjorie swayed on her feet and gripped the edge of the vanity.
Mother rushed into the lounge and knelt next to Aunt Sis. Her large—and apparently very heavy—handbag thudded onto the carpet.
“What are you doing standing there?” Mother demanded. “Get help!”
Marjorie took off running.
I raced into the bathroom, grabbed every hand towel I could find and took them to Mother.
She pressed the towels against the crimson bloom near Aunt Sis’s stomach.
“Don’t you dare die,” said Mother. “We have years of feuding left between us.”
“How bad is—”
“Quiet! She’ll be fine.” Mother might have sounded convincing were it not for the tears streaming down her cheeks.
A few seconds later, the ladies’ lounge was overrun with people. Including the policeman who looked like a George.
“She shot my aunt.” I pointed at Cassie’s prone figure.
He didn’t question me. He just clasped handcuffs around her wrists. Thank God he was a not-so-curious George
A few moments later, Aunt Sis was loaded into an ambulance.
“I’m going with her,” said Mother.
No one argued.
The ambulance flew down the drive. Lord only knew what Mother was saying to the emergency personnel inside.
Daddy, Greg, and Marjorie followed at a more sedate pace.
I called the Alameda. David needed to know his mother had been shot.
When I emerged from the phone booth, not-so-curious George was waiting for me. “Detective Jones would like to speak with you.”
I bet he did.
“He can find me at the hospital.”
I rushed out the front door of the club, climbed into my car and pointed it toward the hospital.
Please God, let Aunt Sis be okay.
Twenty-Three
Hospital waiting rooms—even private ones—are horrible. Who picks the colors? Do they also decorate gulags? How does one decide on congealed oatmeal as a paint color? What about sickly blue Naugahyde on the chairs? Who picks that?
I shifted on my sickly blue Naugahyde chair and checked my watch. Aunt Sis had been in surgery for an hour. In that hour, Mother had demanded an update six times.
Marjorie and Greg held hands.
David paced. He paused and asked for the third time, “My mother jumped someone with a gun?”
“Yes.”
“Because that woman was pointing the gun at you and Marjorie?”
“Yes.”
He resumed his pacing.
“She saved our lives,” said Marjorie.
And then Mother saved our lives. “I thought you weren’t coming to the club,” I said.
She sniffed. “I changed my mind.”
Anarchy Jones appeared in the doorway. Frankly, I’d anticipated he’d arrive sooner.
“A word, Ellison?”
I stood. “Fine.”
“I’ll need to speak with you too, Mrs. Blake, Mrs. Walford.”
Marjorie nodded.
Mother ignored him.
“Coffee shop?” I asked.
We walked the hospital corridors in silence. We sat at our usual table in silence. We pretended to look at the menus in silence.
“Marjorie was the target,” he said. “You were right.”
“It happens.” I shrugged. “I wonder what kind of pie they have.” I didn’t want pie. There was no way I could eat pie. Not until I knew Aunt Sis would be all right.
A waitress—this one with a flip instead of a beehive—approached the table.
“Pie?” Anarchy asked.
“Just coffee,” I said.
“Two coffees and a slice of banana cream.”
The waitress jotted our order down.
“Tell me what happened,” said Anarchy.
I told him—first about Kinky and Marjorie.
He scowled at me. “That would have been helpful to know.”
I shrugged. Sharing that a family member was an adulteress wasn’t something any member of my family would do.
“What happened in the lounge?”
I told him about Cassie and the gun and Aunt Sis.
“Your mother hit Mrs. LeCoeur in the head with her handbag?”
“Yes.”
“What does she carry in there?”
“I looked inside.”
“And?”
“She had several rolls of quarters.”
“Why?”
“She meant to go to the bank. She says trips to the hospital kept getting in the way.”
“Thank God.”
The waitress put down our coffee and the pie.
Anarchy pushed the plate into the middle of the table and put a fork in my hand. “Have you eaten today?”
I hadn’t.
“Try it.”
“I don’t want any.”
He used his secret weapon—that melting grin. “Just one bite.”
I ate the entire slice.
Anarchy paid the tab and escorted me back to the waiting room where Mother, Daddy, and Greg waited.
“Any news?” I asked.
Mother shook her head.
“Where’s Marjorie?”
“She and David went somewhere.”
“May I call you tomorrow, Mrs. Walford?” asked Anarchy.
“Fine.”
“Goodbye, Ellison.” He
dropped a kiss on my cheek. “Tell your sister I’ll be in touch. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Mother was too distracted to look annoyed by his tiny kiss. She didn’t seem to notice when he left. “What if she dies?” She sounded bereft.
“She won’t,” said my father.
“You can’t possibly know that.” Mother snapped the end off each word.
“Harrington, I could do with a cup of coffee,” said Greg. “Would you show me where the coffee shop is?”
We watched them go.
“That Greg has more sense than I gave him credit for.”
“Oh?”
“I’m not fit company.” Mother’s gaze rested on a horrible painting of a woman in a field. “Your grandfather wanted to be a painter.”
“He did?”
I’d never heard that before.
“His father wanted him in the family business.”
Which is what he’d done. That and expand it exponentially.
“My father favored Sis. He said she had a poet’s soul.” Mother looked at me and smiled sadly. “He would have adored the woman you’ve become.” She wiped her eyes. “Knowing that your father loves your sister better…it isn’t something you get over. I’ve held it against Sis for most of our lives.”
I didn’t say a word. Mother and I were in uncharted territory, a territory where she revealed part of her soul.
“And now she might die, and I’ve wasted all these years being mad at her.” She let the next few tears track down her cheeks. “The worst part is, she got hurt trying to save my daughters.”
I waited for Ellison this is all your fault.
It didn’t come. Perhaps because, this time, it wasn’t my fault.
Mother sniffled.
I shifted to the chair next to hers and took her hand. “She won’t die.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I know.” Now that our family had a chance to heal, Sis wouldn’t die. I wouldn’t let her.
Mother bowed her head and her lips moved but I heard no sound.
She was praying.
I joined her.
Maybe it worked. A moment later, the surgeon appeared. “Mrs. Walford, your sister is in recovery. She’s going to be fine”
Mother dissolved in tears.
I might have gotten a little misty myself.
“Where’s David? He’ll want to know.”
Mother was worried about David? What next? Flying pigs?
Daddy and Greg wandered back in, each carrying two cups of coffee.
My father saw Mother’s tears, handed me the cups, and pulled her into a hug.
“Happy tears.” Mother’s voice was choked.
“Thank God,” said Daddy.
“Where did Marjorie and David go? I’ll go get them.”
“We’re here,” said Marjorie.
“Your mother is going to be fine, David.”
The green faded from his skin.
“We have news too.” Marjorie looked like the cat that swallowed the canary.
“What?” asked Mother.
“I’ve decided to give David a kidney.”
Everyone but David stared at her slack-jawed. My self-centered sister voluntarily undergoing major surgery?
I waited for Mother’s argument—even crafted it in my head. But Mother didn’t argue. She opened her arms wider and included Marjorie in her hug with Daddy.
That’s the thing about families—at least mine. We keep secrets and fight and love each other. Sometimes, my family surprises me. I wouldn’t change a thing.
About the Author
Julie Mulhern is the USA Today bestselling author of The Country Club Murders. She is a Kansas City native who grew up on a steady diet of Agatha Christie. She spends her spare time whipping up gourmet meals for her family, working out at the gym and finding new ways to keep her house spotlessly clean—and she’s got an active imagination. Truth is—she’s an expert at calling for take-out, she grumbles about walking the dog and the dust bunnies under the bed have grown into dust lions.
The Country Club Murders
by Julie Mulhern
Read all about them at www.henerypress.com
THE DEEP END (#1)
GUARANTEED TO BLEED (#2)
CLOUDS IN MY COFFEE (#3)
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CLOUDS IN MY COFFEE Page 23