Family Case of Murder

by Vanessa Gray Bartal

  Like a magic elixir, the chocolate had the desired effect. As it melted on her tongue, she slowly came back to life. “Ouch,” she said.

  “What hurts?” Jason asked.

  “Everything.” Her muscles were sore, her scalp hurt, her skin prickled.

  “What hurts the most?” he clarified.

  “The cut,” she said. It stung, springing to life with fresh blood every time she moved. It wasn’t deep, but it was long, running the length of her rib cage.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said, extending his hand toward the bed for her.

  “I can do it,” Lacy said.

  He remained immobile, waiting for her acquiescence. She was too tired and too frazzled to hold onto her sliver of pride. When they reached the bathroom, she wished she had held strong. Not that Jason hadn’t been looking at her in her current state for the past hour, but it was different to wonder if she was a mess and to see in the mirror just how bad off she was. Her face was smeared with dirt and what looked like tears, though she didn’t remember crying. She smelled like monkey and sweat, her hair was as erratic as she had thought, and her makeup had smeared into raccoon eyes. She sighed as she surveyed the damage.

  Jason wet a cloth with warm water, wiped the dirt from her face and then gently undid what was left of her braid. He searched her toiletries until he located her brush and began running it gently through her hair.

  “I can do that,” she said, a token protest again.

  He didn’t reply; instead he kept up a gentle, steady rhythm with the brush until Lacy felt like she might fall asleep. She closed her eyes and leaned back, which probably made it difficult to reach her with the brush, but he didn’t stop until all the snarls were removed.

  “There,” he said at last, his voice soft and gentle.

  Lacy warily cracked her eyes to survey the damage. It wasn’t as bad as she thought, and she opened them all the way. Her face, scrubbed free of makeup, was pale. But her hair had dried in the braid and was pleasantly crimped as if she had intended it that way. He slipped his arm around her waist and rested his head against hers as they surveyed each other in the mirror. His dark hair and dark complexion were pleasant contrasts to her red hair and porcelain skin. They looked good together, as if they matched somehow.

  “You sure know how to show a guy an exciting time, Red,” Jason said, and the quiet spell was broken. Lacy turned toward him, laughing as she stood on her toes and cupped his face in her hands.

  “You know what’s crazy? Despite everything, this is still one of the best weekends I’ve ever had.”

  He smiled, tilting forward to kiss the tip of her nose. “Ready? We’re going to have to book it to make our flight.”

  “I just need to change.”

  “I’m here to help,” Jason said, reaching for the hem of her shirt.

  “Nice try,” Lacy said, laughing again as she shoved him out of the bathroom and closed the door.

  Chapter 18

  Lacy changed into the Babycakes t-shirt and well worn jeans, tossing the ruined Prada shirt into the garbage. Good riddance to high fashion, she thought, but she didn’t really mean it. There was nothing like dressing up to make a girl feel special. Someday when she wanted to feel that way again, she would borrow from her biological grandmother’s wardrobe. For the time being, however, she was just plain Lacy Steele.

  With the monkey gone, she no longer had to wear her hair tucked under a cap. She left it down so the crimped waves skimmed her shoulders. When she stepped from the bathroom, she remembered that she had forgotten to fix her makeup. Her hand was on the door when Jason spoke.

  “You look pretty.” It was the first time he had said as much to her all weekend. She had the feeling that he enjoyed the relaxed version of her much more than the well-heeled one. She could relate. As good as he looked in a suit, he looked even better in a muscle-hugging t-shirt and a pair of jeans.

  “Thank you,” Lacy said, feeling suddenly shy. “Ready?”

  “More than you could ever know. Fingers crossed we can make it to the front door without some further calamity,” Jason said.

  Lacy would have made a joke in reply, but she wasn’t sure he was kidding. He carried their bags as she trailed behind, glad he was in front of her and couldn’t see her limp. She began to fear that she had wrenched her ankle in the scuffle, but there was no need to volunteer that information.

  The family was still assembled in the living room, sans Chuck. Gregor sat on the couch staring at nothing, not even touching his video game. Lacy handed him what remained of her chocolate, holding it under his nose like a bouquet of flowers.

  “Thank you,” Gregor said, grabbing the chocolate and clutching it close to his chest the way she had done when she discovered it in Hildy’s room.

  “You’re welcome,” Lacy said. She thought that was the end of it until he abruptly stood and swallowed her in a bear hug, crushing her bones, along with her windpipe, and making her cut ooze fresh blood. At least she had covered it in bandages. Hopefully they would last until she arrived home and could change them.

  “Okay, that’s good,” Jason said. “It’s quickly moving from sweet to creepy. Let go.”

  Lacy didn’t disagree and was glad for his interference. The hug had turned a little too intimate for her taste at the end. Gregor looked unabashed as he sat and began to devour the chocolate.

  Bob and Rita were next in the line of goodbyes. Bob hugged her, awkwardly patting her back without a word. When it was Rita’s turn, she whispered something about seeing Lacy at the wedding. Lacy wanted to ask her why she and Bob were pretending to be together. Would they continue their charade when the truth of Enid’s financial state was revealed? Maybe they weren’t putting on the show for Enid, though. Maybe it was for Robert. Despite his suave appearance, he was emotionally immature. It would no doubt devastate him if his parents divorced.

  Bob and Rita reached for Jason, but he indicated the many bags he was holding, staving off an uncomfortable hug from strangers.

  Robert hugged her and kissed her cheek with affection, as if no weirdness had passed between them, as if he hadn’t sneaked into her room and asked her to get back together. “Goodbye, Lacy. Great to see you this weekend. Can’t wait to see you in that maid of honor dress Riley picked out.” He smiled, his eyes focused just to the right of her head in order to maintain the impersonality of the exchange.

  “Goodbye, Robert,” Lacy said. Her words were weighted with finality. This was definitely the end of anymore thoughts of the man whose memory had tormented her. The truth of his character had been revealed, and she felt only a great sense of relief that she had dodged what would have been a terrible arrangement.

  Riley was the last in line. She made no move to hug Lacy, and Lacy couldn’t bring herself to reach for her sister. In her mind, she saw herself being the bigger person. But her brain couldn’t seem to communicate the thought to her arms in order to make them obey. They stood a foot apart, surveying each other through cool lenses.

  “Bye,” Riley said at last. “Guess I’ll see you at the wedding.”

  “I guess so,” Lacy said. She turned toward the door and paused, forcing herself to look Riley in the eye. “If you need anything, to talk or whatever, call me.”

  Riley nodded, turning away slightly to break the eye contact. Lacy repressed a sigh and stepped in front of Jason as soon as he opened the door for her.

  Jason tossed their bags into the trunk, held the door for Lacy, and sped away.

  He continued to speed as they tried to make it to the airport on time, hurrying the car rental guy in order to make their flight. He handled the checking of their baggage and turned to Lacy. “We’re going to have to sprint to make it,” he said.

  Lacy nodded, grimacing as she began to hobble on her sore ankle. Jason’s sigh was expressive as he stopped short in front of her and loaded her onto his back. “Such a martyr,” he grumbled, and then he ran, probably sprinting as fast as he would have even if he hadn’
t been carrying a passenger.

  The furious bobbing, jogging motion made Lacy giggle as her stomach flopped up and down. By the time they reached their gate, she was laughing hard and so was Jason. They handed their tickets to the boarding agent and fell into their seats, clutching their stomachs with laughter. Once the laughter began, they couldn’t contain it. It was possible they had been storing it up all weekend because the second they started to get themselves under control, Jason mentioned Walker, Texas Ranger, and their laughter started all over again. The reference unleashed a rehashing of the crazy weekend that lasted the rest of the flight. Now that they were safely away, everything seemed hilarious in retrospect.

  The wheels of the plane touched down, and their conjoined mood suddenly turned somber. They were home. After a short drive to Lacy’s house, the weekend was over. What then?

  The oppressive silence lasted while they retrieved their bags from the gate, during the walk to Jason’s car, and lingered into the drive to Lacy’s house. She sat staring out the window, resisting the mad impulse to have a good cry right then and there. She didn’t know what Jason was thinking, but he hadn’t said a word since they left the airplane, though his hand was resting solidly on her knee.

  At least it was there until he jerked it away and abruptly swerved to the side of the road, throwing the car into park. He unfastened Lacy’s safety belt and grasped her biceps, half hauling her from the chair.

  “You can’t pretend this weekend didn’t happen,” he said, almost yelling it as if they were somehow mid-argument. Lacy shook her head, confused. “It happened, okay? It was you and me and it was great. Don’t go home and forget everything or try and pretend everything is the same when it’s not. Things just can’t keep on the way they’ve been, Lacy. I have a limit; I’m human.”

  The cork came off her bottled emotions, and she burst into tears. His grip softened. “Ah, geez,” he said, pulling her close against his chest. “I’m sorry. You’re not supposed to cry. You’re supposed to…Anyway, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  “It’s not you,” she said. It was everything. Coming home felt like resettling the blanket of confusion, fear, and doubt. In New York, things had been so clear, so easy. She wanted to explain, to beg him for more time and patience, but she couldn’t. He had as good as given her an ultimatum. She had never been good at articulating her feelings to him; he always took them the wrong way, always saw it as a choice between himself and Tosh, but it wasn’t. And Lacy was at a loss for how to explain the complexities of her inner workings when she barely understood them herself.

  “I just…I want…” she sputtered.

  “You want it all,” Jason said.

  Perhaps he did understand her. She nodded against his chest.

  “That’s not possible for anyone,” he said. His tone was soothing now, and Lacy’s tears began to dry, leaving her embarrassed for shedding them in the first place. Tosh was usually the go-to person for her emotional meltdowns because he didn’t judge. Jason wasn’t judging either, though. And he wasn’t running away in terror at the knowledge that she occasionally failed to hold on to her rigid self-control. He seemed to be waiting, hoping for her to say more but, like always, Lacy was frozen, and she hated herself for that. Why couldn’t things be simple? She was the one making them so difficult, but she couldn’t seem to untangle the complex knot of emotions warring inside her.

  “We should go,” he said at last, sitting back as he let her go. “I have work tomorrow.”

  Lacy repositioned her seatbelt and turned to look out her window again, using her thumbs to erase the traces of her tears. She wanted, no needed, to talk with him, to have the sort of long and drawn-out debates that she commonly held with Tosh. She needed to tell him everything she was thinking and feeling, to lay her emotions and logic bare for his inspection but, like with Tosh, she wanted the assurance that he would still be there when the conversation ended. She wasn’t sure she had that assurance, that level of trust with him, and it scared her, held her back from saying what needed to be said. She couldn’t let go of the doubt that if she made herself vulnerable, he would walk away.

  The silence, already foreboding and intense, was made worse when they arrived at her house and found Tosh sitting on the front steps, his head hanging dejectedly between his hands like someone had just kicked his puppy.

  Jason, who normally would have issued a sharp comment at the sight, remained speechless as he unloaded Lacy’s bags from his car. Lacy took a few steps toward the house and paused, caught between the house and car like the rope in a game of tug-o-war. Jason crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against his car, waiting. Tosh, who didn’t understand Lacy’s reticence, thought he would urge her along by issuing a greeting.

  “Mrs. Rae died,” he announced, his voice shattering the painful silence.

  “Oh, Tosh, I’m sorry,” Lacy said. She took another step closer to him and Jason moved, uncrossing his arms and standing upright.

  “I’ll see you around sometime, Red,” he said, his casual tone belying none of what he was feeling or thinking. Lacy paused again, now turning toward him as he got in his car and drove away. She waited until he was out of sight before finishing the journey to Tosh. The sidewalk had never felt so long, the porch never so far away.

  She sat on the step beside Tosh and slid her arms around his shoulders, bestowing a sideways hug. “I’m really sorry,” she reiterated.

  “She was doing so well. I thought she was going to make a recovery. We even played a game of checkers last night and she beat me, and then the hospital called this morning. I wasn’t even there. In the end, I failed her and she died alone.” He paused, swiping his hand under one eye.

  “You know that’s not true. If you’d had any indication that she wasn’t doing well, you wouldn’t have left her side. You would have stayed with her. You undoubtedly made her last days a joy.” Tosh was sweet and fun, filled with joy and humor--the perfect balm for a lonely old woman stuck in the hospital.

  He let that digest a couple of minutes as he reached around her and returned her hug, resting his head on hers. “How was your weekend?”

  “It was…good.” She tried hard not to let too much of what she was feeling leak into her tone, but she must not have succeeded because Tosh stiffened and sagged a little, drawing slightly away from her.

  “Would you maybe consider going to the funeral with me?” he asked. “It’s day after tomorrow. I could use the moral support.”

  “Tosh, what a question. Why would you even have to ask? Of course I’ll go with you; you’re my best friend.”

  He gave a sad little smile. “Yeah, lucky me.”

  The resigned quality of his tone disturbed her; this was definitely not her day for relationships. But it wasn’t really about her; it was about Tosh and his pain. “Tell me all about it,” she said. They walked hand in hand to retrieve her bags and Tosh talked, filling her in on all that happened while she was away. He didn’t ask anymore about her weekend, and Lacy didn’t volunteer any information. It was as if they had somehow made a pact to never mention it again.

  Epilogue

  For two weeks, Lacy’s life returned to normal and Jason was nowhere to be found. He didn’t call, he didn’t stop by; she hadn’t even so much as glimpsed him around town. She didn’t want to read anything into his unnatural disappearance, but it was impossible not to, especially with his words still echoing in her head. I have a limit; I’m human.

  Today was a big day, however, and she pushed the disconcerting emotions aside. As if to signal that the day was going to be a good one, she smelled brownies as soon as she woke up. Her grandmother had been rigidly employing her new healthy regimen, costing Lacy a lot of money at the bakery--so much that the bakery’s owner sent her grandmother a cookbook of fat-free, gluten-free recipes. Lucinda had been puzzled by the gift, still not realizing that Lacy was sneaking treats from an outside source.

  Her grandparents were sitting at the kitchen table when she e
merged for the day, a spring in her step and a smile on her face. Today was going to be great, she just knew it.

  “Good to see you smiling again,” her grandfather said with a smile of his own.

  Lacy’s smile dimmed as she retrieved her coffee. She thought she had been fastidious in her attempts to cover her unhappiness of late. “Big day,” Lacy said.

  “What time are you meeting with the man?” her grandfather asked.

  “Five,” Lacy said. She was meeting with her new tenant; the meeting, scheduled two weeks ago, had been postponed due to a glitch in his moving schedule.

  “Do you want me to go with you?” he asked. The concern in his gravelly voice was genuine, but unnecessary. Lacy stooped to bestow a kiss on his weathered head.

  “Thanks, Grandpa, but it’s okay.”

  “Lacy, you know I try hard not to interfere with my opinion, but I don’t like you meeting strange men alone,” he said, sounding slightly flustered by her display of affection.

  “I know, Grandpa, but I’m not sure people will view me as a responsible businesswoman if I have to have a chaperon every time I meet with a man.” She smiled to remove any possible sting from her words, but she meant them. She was a grownup, perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

  Her grandfather blew on his coffee, his way of stifling whatever it was he wanted to say. Lacy reached for a brownie cooling on the counter. She took a bite and froze, fighting her gag reflex. Once in desperation during high school, she ate a Milk Dud she found under her dresser, several months after it had first landed there. The brownies tasted even worse than that.