Relatively Risky

by Pauline Baird Jones

  “You have seen her.”

  There was nothing new in his uncle’s voice and yet…he allowed himself a slight, very slight nod. He’d had time to consider the meeting, to figure out how to turn his lack of success into something that would play better with his uncle. But if he gave it up too quickly, his uncle would know.

  “What…” a pause as the old man took a drink of water “…was she like?”

  Dimitri did not move, but his eyes widened some. This was not a question he’d anticipated from the old man who never, ever got personal. He sorted through his confused impressions from the meeting, wondering which would play the best. He did not want to lose this edge.

  “She was…” he shrugged, “…ordinary, though…” He stopped, as his uncle’s hands gripped the arms of his wing backed chair. He did not think he wanted to tell his uncle she’d accomplished something no other woman had. He’d walked away remembering her.

  “Though?” His uncle prompted. Surely a first.

  He shrugged. “We were interrupted. I believe she’ll be handing out canapés at your party, if you plan to go through with it.”

  His uncle took another sip from his glass, then set it on the table at his elbow. One finger stroked down the side of the glass, lids and stoic expression hiding his thoughts. Dimitri knew this silence, fought its insistence, the question an irritating itch in the back of his throat. To ask was to give power back to his uncle. Or to let him believe he had it back? Yes, that was it. Something about Nell Whitby had opened a vein of weakness in the old man’s fortress.

  “Who is she?”

  “She is no one.” The heavy lids lifted, the cold gaze stabbing bright into the dim room, daring him to argue with the words.

  “It is as I thought,” Dimitri said, and knew he lied. That they both lied. She was not yet someone, but she was not no one. The deep well of the past shifted again, uneasy as it had not been in memory. Because his uncle watched him, he could not shift against the chill creeping down his back. He did not know how or why she mattered, just that she did. And the answer lay not in her life, or in her file, but in his uncle’s past. It was a dangerous place to probe but this time, it might be worth the risk.

  7

  Nell woke to pale sunlight trickling through gaps in the blinds. She eyed it with disfavor. It felt kind of pissy of Mama Nature to weigh in with sun today. Least she could do was throw some clouds into the sky. Maybe a little storm action. Not that unusual-for-spring heat was exactly the cheerful choice, but…

  Nell sat up before she remembered why it was a bad idea. She rode the waves of ouch until everything settled into a low grumble. Then she rested her feet on the cool wood floor. That felt rather good. She might have tried it for other achy body parts, but she wasn’t sure she could get up twice. And her bladder had a standing date with the porcelain throne down the hall. It, more than the sun, was what had pulled her from sleep. It was true that her dreams had not been so great she’d wanted to linger there. Waking or sleeping, she felt dogged. A cat person should not feel dogged. Particularly one who did not, at present, have a cat.

  In the bathroom, she avoided making eye contact with herself in the mirror. She didn’t need to confirm the bags under her eyes when she could feel them dragging down the upper part of her face. She concluded her date with porcelain, then turned to the shower. Maybe it would help ease the ouch factor.

  When the water turned as cool as it could this time of year—didn’t even need the hot water heater—she stripped and climbed in. She found it a bit win/lose. The water eased the sore muscles while making the scrapes sting fiercely. Without enthusiasm, she applied soap and shampoo to the appropriate places, inducing another round of stinging. After rinsing and repeating, she leaned her aching head against the side, and while the water beat into sore spots, she eased open the angst flood gates and let herself think about yesterday.

  Instead of a flood, angst trickled in a bit half heartedly. Nell sighed. She’d always sucked at angst. She turned her back to the wall now, shifting so the water didn’t hit her face. She should have been able to get some good angst going. She’d dang near died yesterday. She stared down at her chest. It looked the same as it had before she’d almost died. Not a lot there. She touched the spot, but it didn’t feel real. None of it felt real. Not the possibility someone might be trying to kill her or bald Curly’s—why were bald men always called Curly— revelations. Declarations? On the one hand was the photograph he had showed her. It could have been her in vintage get-up, she had to concede. But when she tried to picture her mom as a wise kid, her brain slammed into memories of her extremely ordinary, a bit on the plump side mom in her Wal-Mart checker uniform.

  Those twains did not want to meet. They sure as shooting didn’t want to shake hands or sit down for a catch up.

  And how did her dad fit into bald Curly’s reality? The one where her mom was a wise kid with a—did not even want to think the L word. She’d had no doubt her parents had loved each other, sometimes to the point of embarrassing. She had no desire to consider anything beyond that. Parental sex was—meh. Of course one knew it happened, but one didn’t want to think about it.

  Was it possible that her Dad wasn’t her father? If her mom were this Toni, how likely was it that her dad was the…boyfriend? Wouldn’t there have been some evidence of it? The obligatory confession when she attained her majority? There were health history issues, and besides, her parents and secrets—there was that ordinary wall again. Hitting it hurt almost as much as hitting the ground. Was she crazy? Or was bald Curly the crazy one? She knew who had her vote.

  And—this was why she sucked at angst—why was her brain trying to bring in Alphonse? Maybe work on a story about, well, not wise guys. She wrote kids’ fiction, but what if Alphonse had been adopted? Maybe his dad wasn’t an artichoke after all?

  Nell turned off the water, with another sigh. No wonder she couldn’t get a good angst wallow going. But was it reality? Or denial?

  Not without some reluctance, okay a lot of reluctance, Nell considered St. Cyr while she mopped water off her parts with a towel. What had he believed? Had he believed she was his granddaughter? Was that why he’d come to the Quarter? Smiled at her? Tripped her? Yeah, that was grandfatherly. He had told her to wear a hat. That might be semi-paternal in a really lame way.

  She rubbed her hair with the towel, then contained the damp strands in it, turban style. She wrapped another one around her middle, tucking it in where she wished she had more cleavage. She rubbed a circle in the steam clouding the mirror and studied her nose. She had gotten a touch of sun. Not what one expected a wise guy to worry about, but what should he have said?

  “Nell, I am your grandfather,” she intoned. One who wielded a cane instead of a light saber. “Right.”

  All roads led to ordinary. Even the scenery and signs were boring.

  Auto mechanic.

  Wal-Mart checker.

  Joe and Ellen Whitby.

  Mom and Dad.

  Small town. Small lives.

  Mom had loved lotions and soaps, but no signature scent for her. She went for the flowers. She couldn’t grow them—total brown thumb—so she wore them. Used to tease Nell about her preference for coconut and lemon and vanilla.

  “Always the food smells. You’d think we didn’t feed you.”

  Mom didn’t like flaunting her feelings, was more likely to scold than get mushy, but was quick to defend her family. Dad had loved to tease Mom, get her wound up and then grab her and spin her around until she’d laughed and told him enough of that nonsense. Nell had never seen him so much as glance at another woman, though they’d for sure glanced at him. In that unfair way of the universe, his years had rested more lightly on him than on Mom, but Nell had no evidence he’d noticed Mom getting older. He really did only have eyes for her.

  At the funeral, everyone mentioned how they’d loved each other, that they’d have wanted to go together. Nell didn’t know about that. Going together meant leaving
her alone, but it was true she couldn’t imagine one without the other. They’d loved each other.

  They’d loved her.

  She sat on the toilet seat and rubbed coconut lotion into her skin, her movements as slow as her thoughts. What was fact? What was fiction? What was delusion?

  Had Mom—her mom—had a first love? If St. Cyr thought Nell was his granddaughter, that meant Mom had gotten pregnant here. And then what? Met Dad after? She could believe her Dad would accept Mom, accept and love Nell as his own. But they’d told her they met in high school. And how did she fit their very ordinary into a world of mob families and, what, faked deaths?

  She sighed. When you’re little, normal is your world, your life, your family. Even if it was different from other kids, it was what it was. What was normal anyway? There’d been differences. Things her friends had or did that she didn’t. Like grandparents. Family dinners with relatives. Her friend Lil had a grandma who made paper dolls. It seemed like something she’d like to have, so she asked.

  “No, you don’t have a grandma,” her mom had said and handed her a pile of clothes to put away.

  Nell remembered thinking it was too bad. And not much else. She’d been six. Mom bought her some paper dolls and ended the longing, which had been more about paper dolls than grandparents.

  There was that time she was supposed to bring baby pictures of parents and extended family to school to make a family tree. Then it hadn’t troubled her that there were no pictures of extended family. No pictures of her parents as kids. As babies. Her mom had suggested she draw pictures instead. Had the teacher been surprised? Nell couldn’t remember. No surprise her family tree had consisted of veggies. It’s what she did.

  Drew too much, didn’t think enough.

  Why hadn’t she wondered about it? She’d gone through their things after—it was as if their lives started with Nell’s birth. Okay, she’d been grieving. And she’d never noticed, so she’d never asked. There might have been a reasonable explanation. A fire or something. Stuff did happen to fragile things like mementoes. Adults could be orphans.

  But it was also true, as Sarah had noticed, that her parents had not wanted her to leave home. They’d raised her to be independent, so it was a bit of shock to realize how close they’d managed to keep her. Oh, she’d gone to college. She frowned, still not sure how it was she’d gone for Library Science instead of the art degree. What had they thought when she met Sarah? She’d wanted to visit her, had planned to several times, yet somehow hadn’t. Had she been manipulated? And so skillfully she’d been annoyed, but not suspicious? Or had it been benign clinging? Not relevant to current events?

  Singly, each of these oddities were little, kind of frail, pegs to hang a huge conspiracy on to. Together? She still wasn’t sure they added up to anything but mildly odd, something they could have explained if they’d lived. People were allowed to be odd, to have quirks. To not be wise kids. To even look like people they weren’t.

  To look amazingly like a woman she wasn’t, couldn’t be.

  Was this denial? Or inescapable reality? It’s not like she could go ask the wise guys for a DNA sample. And what if they did turn out to be her long, lost family—

  Family. What if she did have family? They couldn’t all be bad, could they? If her mom had sprung from these people, well, look how she’d turned out. Family. To not be so alone in the world. There was temptation. Was that why they’d kept their secrets? If they had them? Was she starting to believe? Or…hoping?

  What did she want?

  Wow, there was a question. If she could go back to yesterday morning, to not knowing…hard to believe the genie could go back in the bottle, but if she could, would she? One didn’t become even a somewhat reluctant librarian without embracing knowledge, the quest for it thereof. So the answer to the question was a hesitant no. She wouldn’t go back. Probably.

  So that left forward. What did forward involve? A plan, she needed a plan. Her dad always said, when you feel out of control, make a plan. So…

  Hmmm…

  What did she need to know? Or what would she like to know? Well, her dad. If this wasn’t some huge mistake, she’d like to know if her dad was her dad and if he was this Phillip St. Cyr. And if he was….it was a story with missing parts. It was natural to be curious, wasn’t it? Was there a picture somewhere of Phillip St. Cyr? There had to be surely. Maybe on the internet, though that was a slim hope, since it hadn’t existed when he supposedly died. And if she recognized him, that would make St. Cyr her nasty, and recently murdered, grandfather. For a moment her mind boggled, literally, trying to mesh her mom with a wise kid on the run.

  Did she, could she, have gangster relatives?

  Despite the photograph, it didn’t seem possible, couldn’t be real. She’d browsed through her parents papers after the accident, not with a great attention to detail since she’d been weeping, but she didn’t recall an “open in case we die” letter.

  It doesn’t matter what you believe. What matters is what they believe.

  What did they believe? Why hadn’t St. Cyr talked to her if he thought she was his long lost granddaughter? He could have had her followed, she realized with a chill that did nothing to ease the aches or the pains. The idea she’d been watched, her life turned over, was totally creepy. What had he learned? What did he fear? Could he fear? Bet he wondered what she was up to. He was a bad guy and they always thought people were up to something. So, somehow, he sees what he thinks is a face from the past. And once the look into her life was finished? What had he planned to do with what he learned? And that last day of his life? If he knew he was going to die—

  Nell stiffened. He’d done something after he tripped her. He’d picked up her portfolio.

  Seemed overly dramatic to think he’d used the moment of inattention by his possible killer to pass on the message he could have passed on when he wasn’t about to die. She jumped up, almost losing her towel. She re-secured it. It was crazy, illogical even, but it didn’t hurt anything to look. She flung open the door…

  …and came face to face with...

  Alex stared morosely at the rising sun wondering which would be harder. Getting the kinks out of his back or getting rid of the headache from too little sleep and too much thinking. Thinking was overrated, but in the dark reaches of the night, hard to stop. He’d made the rounds, gone up some stairs, down some others, checked windows and doors, with worry balefully circling through his brain.

  Was he overreacting?

  Was he under-reacting?

  Was he swimming into deep waters? Flailing in shallow?

  That the answer to all questions was a resounding maybe did nothing for the headache. The darkness, nighttime, made everything look bigger or feel worse. Not just because his dad said so. Experience taught the same. This was why he hated nights. Not that he was wild about days when he hadn’t gotten enough shut eye. But nights made the bogeymen loom large. At least in the bright sun, problems shrank down to normal. Well, mostly normal. Okay, not very normal this morning. The pile of troubles looked about as big as it had in the dark.

  There was Nell.

  There were the three wise geezers.

  And Curly.

  Hard to make the normal case with a mix like that.

  Three dead bodies—nothing new to a homicide cop—and a shooting.

  Did any of that have anything to do with Nell? Gut said not the bodies, conflicted on the shooting. Logic? It was wandering through the headache, looking for a way out. And the doubts kept pouncing. Night made the tired brain easy prey.

  He’d underestimated her at least a couple of times. She was hard to understand. Easy to kiss. A woman, in fact. Didn’t seem to matter that he was crap at picking women. Not that he’d picked—but he had kissed. He wanted to do it again.

  His pacing brought him back in sight of the overnight bags Dad had brought over—without comment. Alex rubbed the back of his neck. Why hadn’t he commented? Was it because of Curly? Or something else?
Yeah, some cases were easy to remember. Or hard to forget. But he’d run the numbers last night. Thirty years ago his dad was still in a uniform. He and Curly weren’t partners until Zach got promoted to detective. Now Curly might have been involved in the case. He was older than Zach.

  Curly. He’d looked to be in the running for the role of Fourth Corpse. He might wish he’d got the role, if he had been involved in some sort of cover up. Had he screwed up or covered up? Alex was not sure he wanted to know. Department wasn’t exactly squeaky clean in those days, so it wasn’t a huge shock something had gone wrong. He paused at the foot of the stairs, his hand on the bannister. Looking up and wondering why it was so easy to believe that Curly might have done something not quite straight?

  The shriek shattered all thoughts.

  He leapt up two, maybe four steps at a time, rounded the landing, did the same for that set, and the one after that, and saw his brother sitting sheepishly near the top of the last set. Alex slowed enough to realize he was puffing pretty bad. Leaned on the bannister and looked the question he couldn’t ask.

  “I heard something moving up here and thought I’d better check, make sure Nell was all right. She popped out of the bathroom before I could warn her I was, you know, in the hall.”

  “And?” Alex managed the single word.

  “She didn’t drop her towel or anything.” He grinned. “And she’s fine. Real fine, big brother.”

  Alex gave some thought to whether he’d caught enough breath to kick his ass. He decided not quite yet. Not just the stairs, but yesterday, all the body slams. His breathing was still iffy, though the pain report was in. All nerve endings were on duty, sending regular reports.

  As if he knew, his brother grinned. “I don’t think she knew we were guarding her rest, bro.” Something in Alex’s face must have prompted a hasty rider to this comment. “I did explain, through the closed door.”

  Alex sighed and started up the last flight. “I’ll wait for her.” He jerked his head in the direction of down. Walking and talking was still on the tough side.