1 Hot Scheming Mess

by Lucy Carol

  “Lots of people sing at funerals.”

  “Not like this. It’s a comedy gig. Standing at the casket, big and pregnant, sing to the body in front of loved ones.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not a prop? A real live dead guy?”

  “Uh… yeah, a real live, but mostly dead, guy.”

  “Who would be willing to do that?”

  Madison said, “You’re looking at her. I’m pretty desperate myself.”

  Target’s laughter bubbled up as she said, “My respect for your nerve grows daily. But, Phil?” She shook her head. “That guy’ll land on his feet, no matter what it takes.”

  “Yeah.” Madison looked over at the Victorian grandfather clock which now held secrets. “I guess we’re all capable of crazy things if we’re desperate enough.”

  She reached for the doorknob, but Target stopped her, putting her hand on Madison’s arm, saying, “Put the gun prop where no one will see it before you go out there. That thing looks too real.” Madison opened her purse and put the fake handgun in there, closing it back up. Target said, “It’s dangerous for people to think you’re really armed if you’re not.” She gave Madison a sincere look. “Be careful.”

  After exchanging goodbyes, Madison stepped out into the parking lot, glad to have the paperwork from the box safely hidden at Robot Moon Productions. But there were two pieces she had held back. The Cyrillic note and the black and white photo. Walking toward her car, she looked around, assuring herself that she was alone. Climbing in, she left the windows closed and locked her door. She would have to endure the suffocating heat in the car while she faced the photo. Pulling it out of her purse, she held it down in her lap, away from the windows.

  She stared at what her instinct had already told her was bad news. From within a tree or a bush, someone had taken a picture. Leaves forming the frame were like giant close-ups out of focus. The light was soft with a sharp bright spot beyond the trees in the distance. Could be sunset? No. No, it was more likely dawn.

  In the background was a door, or porch step. Hard to tell with the leaves in the way. The focus of the camera was centered on the man in the photo who was not coming out of the door; rather, he was facing it. Had her grandfather ever been that young? So tall and handsome, his strong arms held a small bundle. A box was at his feet. There was a tender expression on his face mixed with… what? Confusion? Worry? The thing he was holding looked like towels or laundry.

  What the hell was going on?

  *****

  She stopped at Spenser’s house, and after heartfelt thanks for the generous loan of the business outfit, Madison switched back into her tank top and jeans. They made plans for Madison to come over tomorrow morning to do the laundry and catch Spenser up on how the meeting had gone with Ann.

  She got back in her car, but before driving off she tried calling her grandfather’s cell phone again. Still no answer. The other heaviness on her heart was ExBoy. She had offended him in a way that she never would have predicted. She called him, but he wasn’t answering either. She heard the beep and said in a timid voice, “Hey. Can you call me back? I need to explain. It came off all wrong.” She disconnected, leaning back into the seat. Staring up at the ceiling, she wondered if he had intentionally not answered the phone.

  The summer sun was bearing down on her windshield as she pulled out the black and white photo again. She hadn’t wanted to show it to Spenser. Gazing at the image of her grandfather so much younger, she remembered what her mother had said about his friends Mitch and Ray working with him back in the early days. She said Grandpa had given a job to Mitch’s son and later to Mitch’s grandson. She jumped to a sitting straight position. How can I be so slow?

  The car keys rattled a discordant tune as she quickly hooked up her seat belt, shoved the keys into the ignition, and sped off.

  She had to find Jason Clark.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Madison burst into The Loony Bean, the glass door swinging wildly, little bells jingling near the top of the door. She rushed up to the counter and said, “Where’s Jason? Is Jason here? I need to talk to him.” A young woman in a barista apron looked up from cleaning off the counter and said, “Sorry. He has the morning shift. He’s gone for the day.” She wiped some splatters and straightened out a napkin dispenser.

  “Could you call him please? It’s really important. Tell him Madison is… no, say Madison Cruz… tell him Madison Cruz is here waiting for him.”

  “I’m sorry but we don’t really—”

  “Please! Tell him it’s an emergency about Vincent. He’ll understand.” For a moment, the young woman looked at her without saying anything, then walked over to another employee. They whispered while looking at Madison. Madison wondered if she looked wild-eyed so she tried to compose herself to look concerned instead of crazy. The other employee shrugged his shoulders and walked into the back room. The young woman came back to Madison and said that it was slow tonight so they would call Jason for her.

  Twenty minutes later, Madison was still sitting at a little table inside the cafe, waiting for Jason. She had watched every person who entered or left the cafe. Everyone looked suspicious for no logical reason. She realized in that moment that this was the behavior she had witnessed from her grandfather at the Fight Cabaret show.

  Just then Jason walked through the door. He looked different without his barista apron. His nice jeans and trendy t-shirt made him look like a customer of the cafe. Madison stood up from the chair in the back corner of the room and waved when he looked in her direction. He walked up, his expression a bit confused. Madison said, “Jason,” and exhaled. “I didn’t know if you would come.”

  He didn’t seem to know if he should smile or not. But his hazel brown eyes looked bright as he searched her face. “I was about to go out anyway, hang with some friends. What’s going on?”

  Madison took his hands and sat him down next to her at the little square coffee table. “Jason. I’m not going to make much sense right now. But please, please bear with me. I have to ask you a few questions.”

  “They said it was an emergency with Vincent? Your grandfather?”

  “Jason, is your grandfather’s name, Mitch?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Do you know where he is right now?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “What’s going on?”

  “I think he’s helping my grandfather. Please. Can you tell me how to contact him?”

  She watched him stare at her as she tried to gauge how much he needed to know. She hardly knew him, but she was going to have to extend a certain amount of trust in him if she hoped to get to Mitch.

  “What’s so bad about helping your grandfather? Helping him with what?”

  “I need to talk to him, Jason. To Mitch.”

  He crossed his arms. “Not until you tell me what’s happened.”

  “How about this? We’ll leave it up to Mitch to tell you. But I need to see him right away.”

  “That might be a little tricky right now. He’s in the hospital.”

  Madison caught her breath as her eyes grew bigger. Jason looked in her eyes and shook his head. In a quiet voice he said, “You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  “What…?”

  “Sorry. Little distracted.”

  “How can you say that when your grandfather has been put in the hospital?”

  “Relax. It’s routine tests. Guess he needs a tune-up once in a while.” He chuckled. “But seriously, I really do think your eyes are…”

  Her light green eyes welled up in tears, looking like crystals as she started looking all around the room, unsure what to think. Jason grew concerned, uncrossing his arms. “Hey, hey now.” He leaned toward her, putting a hand on her shoulder, his brows knit in confusion.

  “Madison, you have to tell me what’s going on. I can’t help if you don’t tell me.”

  “Something terrible happened, something that Mitch probably
knows about. My grandfather left town over it, saying he needs to go get help.”

  He brushed hair away from her face and said, “Start from the beginning.”

  *****

  They had been sitting in his car for the last half hour, parked under the shade of a few large maple trees behind the cafe. With the windows down, a cooling breeze blew in from Madison’s side of the car and back out again through Jason’s side. The scent of lush maple leaves toasted by a hot summer sun blew through the car, making it tempting to relax. But Madison didn’t dare.

  She had said she couldn’t stand being inside the cafe any longer. Every time the little bells jingled at the top of the door they would stop talking while Madison watched whoever had walked in, trying to convince herself that everything was all right. Everyone looked familiar. Everyone looked suspicious. She felt safer at the idea of spilling the story to Jason inside the privacy of his car. Earlier, with Spenser, she had shared the information from the contents of the box, but nothing about her grandfather’s desperate fist fight. Now, with Jason, Madison told him all about the fight and the existence of the box, but nothing about its contents.

  “But how did you know that Mitch was my grandfather?”

  “You used to work for my grandpa, and you said your dad used to work for him, too. When my mom said that Grandpa had given a job to Mitch’s son and later his grandson, I figured it had to be you.”

  “So if Vincent called my grandpa to handle the guy in duct tape, don’t you think it would make sense for Grandpa Mitch to stay at Vincent’s house and sort of babysit Mr. Duct Tape?”

  Madison thought about this. “Yeah. That would be a lot easier than trying to explain to the neighbors why you’re putting Mr. Duct Tape into a car or something.”

  “All he told you to do was hide a box and carry on like normal, right?”

  “Right, and then wait till he contacts me. He said it may take days.”

  “Did you look in the box?”

  She hesitated, then said, “Yes. I didn’t understand much of it, but I shouldn’t talk about it with you.”

  “Fair enough. So why not just hide the box and sit tight?”

  “That’s what I was going to do. But it’s a little hard with someone breaking into my car and knowing where I live.”

  Jason looked at her. “Someone broke into your car?”

  Madison realized she’d left that out. “Yeah. I think someone followed me home from Grandpa’s house. I saw a woman breaking into my car. But she was gone by the time I got out to my parking lot.” Madison leaned back, fighting off a sense of defeat. She looked upward through the open car window. A bigger wind blew through the tree tops causing the rustling sound of the tree leaves to swell.

  He exhaled and said. “Okay. Here’s a question for you. Are you willing to risk talking to my Grandpa Mitch? You may be spilling the beans to him because I’m assuming he’s not the one your grandfather was talking about in that voicemail. He couldn’t be. He went into the hospital this afternoon.”

  Madison looked at him and could see the same thought was hitting Jason, too. She said, “Just this afternoon? Are you sure it’s for routine tests?”

  *****

  The old guy in the hospital gown growled at Jason. “You say anything to your folks, and I’ll kick your punk ass.” Jason nodded at Madison and said, “Yup. He’s going to be fine.”

  Mitch Clark scrunched up his face, grunting in pain as he tried to recover some dignity, adjusting the gown and the blankets around him. “Bastard caught me off guard. I was bending over him to peel the tape from a corner of his mouth to let him drink some juice through a straw.” His voice dropped, and he added, “Idiot.” Madison suspected he meant this insult for himself. He clutched the edge of his blanket, trapping it in a fist. “His legs may have been taped up, but he could still bend at the waist. Brought both his legs up and kicked me hard in the stomach.” He frowned and yanked at the blanket. “Son of a bitch must have hit my gallbladder. Pain was so sharp I could hardly move. I didn’t know what else to do, so I called Ray. He came and took over for me. Locked the asshole in a closet, brought me here, then went back. He’ll keep an eye on him.” Mitch looked past Jason at Madison. “Let me talk to Vincent’s baby girl here.”

  Jason stepped back as Madison stepped up to the side of the bed, and said, “I’m so sorry this happened to you. But please, tell me what’s going on. I’m going crazy trying to make any sense of it.” She remembered him from her childhood and teen hood. Her grandfather had been part of a monthly poker night that had involved six or seven guys. They rotated which house they would meet in. On the months that it landed at her grandfather’s house, Madison would see Mitch attending with the other guys. She had paid so little attention to her grandfather’s social life in those days. She felt embarrassed now that Mitch seemed to be making a fuss over her.

  “Madison.” he picked up her hand and patted it as if she were the one that needed comforting, “Don’t you worry about anything, sweetheart. Your old granddad is out there pulling a fast one on these assholes. They won’t know what hit ‘em till it’s too late.”

  “But who was that this morning? What’s happened?”

  In a gentle voice he said, “You have to understand something. Your grandfather is a good man. And like all good men, he does the best he can with what life throws at him. Life threw him a doozy. There are things that are his business and his secret to tell. It’s not for me to reveal. His main concern was to keep you out of the way till this all gets worked out.”

  Madison was torn between hugging him for being such a good friend to her grandfather, and yelling at him to stop keeping secrets from her. This involves my life, too. She was about to say as much when a nurse came in to shoo out the visitors. Madison saw both Mitch and Jason looking from the nurse to her, pleading with Madison with their eyes for her to be quiet. Shit. She didn’t want the nurse suspecting anything, either. It might bring on the wrong kinds of questions, leading to calling the police. The answers that Madison desired were doomed to be delayed. She couldn’t even ask Mitch about the photo, and what it was her grandfather was holding in the picture. Mitch might not want to accept it, but she was involved.

  Nodding at Mitch, Jason said, “We’ll let you get your rest. I’ll check on you tomorrow.”

  They walked out of the room, and Madison grabbed Jason’s arm. She hastened her pace towards the elevator. “Hey, what’s the hurry?” he asked.

  “As much as I love the air-conditioning in here, we have another stop to make.”

  “Where?”

  “Where do you think?” She fixed him with a look that said she wasn’t taking any bullshit.

  He shook his head as he walked. “No. You should stay away from the house, Madison. Let it rest till Vincent gets back.”

  “I can’t let it rest! You wouldn’t let it rest either if it were your grandfather.”

  In a loud voice he said, “It is my grandfather! He got hurt because of this.”

  In a louder voice, she said, “Mine was about to be killed!” People walking past them in the hallway turned their heads to look at them, then hurried on their way. “Shit!” Madison whispered.

  Approaching the elevator, Madison and Jason joined a small group of people already gathered there, waiting. She leaned in close to Jason and said in an agitated whisper, “Whether these old guys like it or not, they need some help. We can’t accept a pat on the head and let them risk their lives over some stupid secret!”

  A few more people came up to the elevator, holding flowers. A woman with a big sun hat kept busy looking down at her cell phone. A little boy held his mother’s hand while he stared at Madison. Soon they were all joined by a man carrying two coffees to deliver.

  In a heated whisper, Jason replied, “Our grandfathers insisted we not tell my folks or your mom.” He looked her in the eye. “I’m not going to tell. Are you?”

  In a breathy explosion, she whispered, “No! Of course not!”

 
He looked down at her upturned face and whispered, “Well, then we’re keeping a secret, too! So, how do you like that?” She waved an arm in the air as she whispered, “We’re keeping the secret to protect our grandfathers!”

  “And maybe they’re keeping a secret to protect you!” he whispered back. “Who knows who else they’re trying to protect?” He leaned over to the wall and punched the elevator button hard.

  Madison leaned over with him and angrily whispered, “How are you going to feel if one of them gets killed while we’re waiting around?” After a pause, she heard people behind her whispering, “I think I’d rather take the stairs,” while the little boy whispered to his mother, “Is Grandpa going to die?”

  To get away from their audience Madison and Jason stepped away a few paces, while the little boy looked around his mother’s skirt to watch them go stand off to the side.

  The elevator dinged and opened. Madison and Jason stayed back while everyone else got on and the door closed. The woman with the sun hat seemed to change her mind and stood off to the side reading the directory on the wall near Jason. He looked around and his eyes landed on the woman, his face knit in concentration.

  Madison said, “You don’t have to go. I can go to my grandpa’s house by myself. I have to talk to Ray. Just take me back to my car.” The next elevator opened up, empty. They stepped inside, alone. Jason hit the ground floor button.

  “By yourself, my ass.” He confessed, “I was going to drop you off safe, then go there without you.” He kept hitting the button, trying to make the door close. She smiled, relieved to have someone go with her. But instead of saying thank you, she said, “It’s pretty great, actually.”

  “What is?”

  “Your ass.”

  The elevator door closed, and Jason wore a small smile. But as the elevator descended, Madison felt her heart descending with it…

  …wondering if Ann already knew something.