by Lori Avocato
I shivered. Linda had lain there paralyzed until she could no longer breathe and died.
“So, Vance, how did you get away with giving those basketball players new shoes to lie for you?”
He curled his lip. I could tell that “fake break” stuff wasn’t his style. He really hadn’t wanted to involve others in the deception. “A man from the YMCA told all of us doctors that the kids needed newshoes. We used it as a tax write-off.”
The capper who gave us Polish people a bad name. So that’s how they allayed suspicion about the shoes. I wasn’t far off in my thinking on that one.
“So all along it was you doctors and nurses that were committing the fraud. And here I thought the Mafia was involved.” Okay, that wasn’t really true, but in this situation, I lied. There never had been any truth to the old rumors of Tina’s family being involved with the Mafia from our nursing-school days. But Vance didn’t have to know that.
I thought I heard a noise in the distance, but then Vance started to speak. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I’d never had anything to do with the Mafia. My family is pristine in their reputation.”
Until their son became a murderer.
I wondered if I’d ever see my family. Mom, or Dad, or Uncle Walt. Tears welled up in my eyes. “I want to see my family.” Sobs followed.
Vance looked more confused than before. But he knew how I felt about my family, so he bought it. He reached over and wiped a tear from my cheek. “It’ll be all right. It’ll be fine, Pauline.”
How could death be fine? I realized that Vance was cracking, but not in a violent sort of way. No, his style was more mellow, more emotional.
So, I had to use that.
I cried louder.
“Pauline. Please. You know I don’t like tears.”
“I … can’t … help … it.”
He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a linen handkerchief. Wow. He really had suffered a meltdown to let me use his linen on my nose.
I blew loudly.
He shut his eyes.
A loud banging came from above, outside the elevator.
Vance looked up.
I lunged, ignored the pain in my arm, and managed to grab his gun.
Boom!
Twenty-seven
December 24
I looked at the Christmas tree in my mother’s living room and smiled. Daddy always waited until Christmas Eve to get a good buy. Thing was, he inevitably got one that was about two feet too tall, and then he cut off the top, making it out of shape.
It warmed my heart to see the familiar hacked-up, out-of-shape tree.
It also warmed my heart to see my family milling about dressed in festive holiday attire—and I was alive to see it. That felt pretty damn good too.
I ran my hand across my neon pink cast and shut my eyes. How clearly I could picture Vance lying on the elevator floor, me with his gun pointed at him as if I’d known how to shoot, and my other hand slamming the elevator button to make it go.
When the door had opened, Jagger yanked me out in a nanosecond. Vance’s gun went off a second time and hit the same spot on the ceiling that I’d shot earlier. All I could say as Jagger held me was, “I couldn’t do that again if I tried.”
It’d been over a week since I’d seen or heard from Jagger.
I opened my eyes. The six-o’clock news was on the television. No matter what the occasion, Daddy had to watch the news. If he saw it at lunchtime, he wouldn’t watch it at six. I always wanted to point out that a lot could happen in the world between noon and six, but, well, that was Daddy.
I loved him as he was, as I loved all the rest of my family too. Each had their own quirks, but hey, they were my quirky family. It’d been tough the first few days after the incident with Vance since the news covered the case over and over. My poor parents had just about made me move in with them.
I inhaled.
Pine Renuzit.
Suddenly that thought wasn’t so bad.
Yikes! It had to be the fact of nearly being killed that had my mind discombobulated. Sure, I loved the folks, but moving back … ack. Still, it was great to see that the six-o’clock news now covered sightings of Santa. My nieces and nephews were ecstatic each time a reporter mentioned spotting the old man at the North Pole.
I looked into the kitchen to see Goldie, wearing the lovely mauve striped silk scarf I’d just given him as a Christmas Eve gift, dancing about to “Jingle Bells” while he bounced my niece Hanna around.
Miles was quoting from the cookbook I’d given him, and my mother and he stood arguing about how much vinegar went into the dried mushroom soup. Oh, she’d given Miles and Goldie condoms as stocking stuffers. Gotta love her.
Uncle Walt sat at the table with his fork in his hand even though dinner wouldn’t be ready for about an hour. I’d learned earlier that Jagger had come over a few days ago and given Uncle Walt a ride around the block in his Suburban.
I sighed.
Ring. Ring.
“Pauline, don’t just stand there in a fog. Get the door,” Mom called from the kitchen.
“Sure.” I hadn’t taken a head count, but thought we were all here. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen ex-nun Mary and her husband. “Merry”—I opened the door—“Christmas!”
“Yeah.”
“Jagger.”
He walked in and stood in the foyer, where he shrugged off the freshly fallen snow. It cascaded to the floor like frozen diamonds. “You were expecting Santa?”
No, this is way better, I thought, then looked outside to see it would be a white Christmas after all.
“Well? Aren’t you going to take these?” He held out a gigantic Christmas bag.
“Aren’t you going to use that?” my mother said coming up from behind.
We looked at her.
She pointed to the ceiling.
Mistletoe. I actually think it’d been hanging there since 1969, but it never got much use from me.
“Mother. No—”
Jagger pulled me closer and planted a kiss on my cheek.
Close up I could see that his shiner, faded to a dull yellow, was nearly gone. Good thing, or I’d have to explain it to my folks. I had enough on my mind, like if he let me go right now, I’d collapse against my mother and probably crush her. Then who would clean up?
I summoned my mental faculties and said, “Come in. We haven’t started to eat yet.”
“I need to talk to you first,” he said. “Merry Christmas, Missus Sokol.”
She nodded.
“Talk to me? Sure.”
My mother raised her hands. “I’ll leave you two alone.”
Mom!
Jagger followed me into the study and shut the door. “I had to wrap up a few things about the case, but here.” He took an envelope out of his pocket.
I stared at it. “I didn’t get you a Christmas present ’cause—”
“I said I’d pay you for the job.”
At least my crimson complexion was festive with my green wool pants and green sweater.
He held out the bag. “Where do grab bags go?”
“I’ll take them.”
He handed me the gift. “Look, I tried to get to you as soon as I had figured out Vance was involved. Your god damn cell phone conked out. It took me forever to find you. Then … then the elevator …”
I shut my eyes. I couldn’t go through that scene again. I opened my eyes. “I know. In my excitement of the new job, I forgot to charge the phone.”
He shook his head.
“Fabio ever pay you?”
“That’s how I finished my Christmas shopping. He was pleased, well, as pleased as Fabio would admit to, about the extra fraud I’d discovered. He also said he’d give me a new case—”
Jagger groaned.
“I’m learning.”
“Then you need to learn not to go into empty buildings alone, unarmed—”
“Hey, I shot that elevator—twice.”
&nbs
p; “Let’s just say you’ve grown as an investigator, since you didn’t get yourself killed.”
I smiled. He’d just about admitted that I had done all right. Knowing him, though, that was the best I’d get as far as compliments went.
He shook his head. “The DA has the case now. Seems your buddy Vance, the Macalusos and Charlene will all be spending Christmas in jail, courtesy of the state.”
“Vance is not my buddy,” was all I could say.
Jagger once again shook his head, then turned to my father’s old rolltop desk. He picked up a pen and took my arm. Then, he wrote a doodle of Spanky on my cast and his cell phone number.
“I memorized it.”
He covered my cast. “Go ahead.”
Shoot. “Um … five … two … two … I know there’s a two in it somewhere.” I pulled free. “Senior moment.”
“Auntie Pauline,” my nephew Charlie stuck his head in the door. “Babci said to come into the living room for grab bags.”
Jagger pushed past me and followed Charlie.
I stood there and smiled. He was actually excited about something. How cute. He’d never done grab bags in his life, I assumed. But from what I knew about Jagger now, he’d never admit it.
I’d come to see a gentle side of a man who would hate to hear that—and would deny it vehemently. A man who would make a point to give an eighty-year-old man a ride. Who would throw a bone seventeen times for a five-pound dog. Or a man who would make me feel safe, even when I couldn’t see him.
Suddenly it really didn’t matter whom he worked for, why he was so driven or what went on in his and Nick’s past. Right now, I could care less.
After the presents were exchanged—and I stopped complaining that I’d gotten a folding shovel, because that’s what I’d put in—Jagger motioned for me. I followed him to the fireplace, where he reached into his bag. One box was left in it. He took it out and handed it to me.
I began to say something, but he touched his finger to my lips. Then he leaned forward and kissed me—on the lips!
A warmth headed down to my insides, stopping just short of my panties when I reminded myself that I was in my parents’ house.
“Merry Christmas,” he whispered into my ear.
I’ll never wash that ear again.
I started to drop the box, but caught it before making more of a fool of myself.
“Open it,” he said.
My fingers shook. I kept trying, but they wouldn’t work. He reached over and touched my hand. Then he pulled one end of the paper to start it for me. My heart did a Christmas jig of its own. Soon I had the paper torn and read on the box, “Motorola wireless? But I have a cell phone.”
“Comes with two chargers, Sherlock. One for your house. One for your car.”
I looked at him and laughed.
“And if you don’t use it, I’m going to have a microchip put on your tooth. As a matter of fact … say ah.”
About the Author
Photo by Sal Avocato
After serving in the Air Force as a registered nurse, LORI AVOCATO decided to give up nursing to write fiction. Lori lives in New England with her husband and two teenage boys and is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. A Dose of Murder is her first mystery novel.
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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EPub Edition July 2013 ISBN 9780062310286
A DOSE OF MURDER. Copyright © 2004 by Lori Avocato. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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