Paws For Death

by Susan Union

  “He should keep it then. A souvenir.”

  “You’re funny, Randi. Call me when you’ve captured your mother.”

  ****

  Lindbergh Field had two terminals, each with its own separate entrance and exit. Since her mother hadn’t bothered to mention an airline when she barked her orders over an hour ago, Randi’s plan was to cruise past Southwest first, in her mind the most logical choice for air travel, then head over to the far terminal. If she still couldn’t find her, she’d park and go in.

  She jockeyed for position in the midst of the melee of cars dropping off, picking up and getting the hell outta Dodge. She spotted her mother in half a second flat. The only woman outside the terminal holding a dog with ears too big for its body and a dangling plumed tail.

  Randi jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Get in back, buddy.”

  Shane acted like he hadn’t heard. She told him again, this time like she meant it. He grumbled and leveled a dirty look but obeyed anyway.

  “Quit complaining. I’d gladly trade places with you. You drive and deal with my mother and I’ll curl up on the backseat and take a nap.”

  She pulled to the curb, leaned over to reach the handle and flung the passenger door wide. It didn’t feel right to get out and greet her mother with a hug. This wasn’t that kind of reunion.

  Her mother climbed in, put Jojo on her lap and clunked her suitcase along the running board as she pulled it in after her, huffing and puffing with exasperation. “I could have used a hand.”

  Off to a terrific start. No thanks for coming to get me, or I’m sorry I’ve been such a shitty mother. “Where’s your doggie seat belt contraption thing?”

  Her mother stared at the line of cabs in front of them. Trunks were popped open and unloaded, followed by quick hugs and hasty good-byes “I left it.”

  “At Dad’s?”

  “Let’s go.” She flicked a hand. An order to move along. “I’m tired.”

  “You missed Gina’s memorial, you know.”

  No response.

  “I thought you were her best friend.”

  “Drive.”

  Randi felt herself heating up. “It’s always about you, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t take that tone with me, young lady.”

  Randi pulled away from the sidewalk, fast enough to appease the orange-vested, cross-armed security guard, yet slow enough to be disobedient to her mother, and merged into the appropriate lane to take them back onto the freeway. “I’m twenty-nine. I’ll take whatever tone I damn well please.” Randi surprised herself with the force of her anger. She’d never talked to her mother this way and might not live to ever do it again. “While we’re on the subject, you could have called when you decided to run back to Dad. It was pretty cowardly of you. A, to take off; B, to not even let me know where you’d gone. Do you have any idea how worried I was?”

  Her mother picked at something behind Jojo’s ear.

  “Please don’t ignore me.”

  She started humming. Some irritating tune.

  “What are you? A teenager? Sometimes it feels like I’m the mother and you’re the child. What kind of screwy relationship is this?”

  Wide-eyed, Lee Ann straightened like a puppet being lifted from above, her features wooden. She rotated her head as if possessed. “What did you say?”

  A shiver ran down Randi’s spine and for a horrible moment she was nine again. Her plastic horse, in a mad gallop to escape the imaginary mountain lion chasing it down the hall, had caught a hoof on the cord to her mother’s precious Chinese lamp. Randi remembered thinking the lamp teetered so slowly, why couldn’t she catch it? After the crash, at the end of the hallway, with her mouth hanging open in horror, her mother had worn the same expression she wore now.

  Randi gripped the wheel, bracing for the verbal lashing she knew was coming.

  “Well, well, well…Look at you, sitting there all high and mighty. Did you ever consider what I’m going through? Where do you get off talking to me that way? I didn’t raise you to be a smartass.”

  Randi changed lanes and lead-footed the gas. Shane scrambled on the backseat to keep his balance. She shot a look of apology in the rearview mirror. “That’s because you didn’t raise me. You ran off, remember? And why the hell didn’t you tell me you slept with Steve Copeland? Your best friend’s fiancé? Seriously, Mom?”

  Shane whined. Jojo stuck her head between her paws.

  “Look what you’ve gone and done. You’ve upset Shane.”

  For a moment, Randi thought her mother had chosen to lighten the mood. A glance at her face said otherwise.

  “You don’t care about Shane. You’re just using him to make your point. All you care about is your dog, your feelings.” The words were flowing and there was no stopping them. “You hurt me, Mom. You left without any explanation. Again. You wouldn’t treat Jojo like that, but you did it to me and then you ran back to the one person in the world who’s even more vulnerable to your cruelty than I am.”

  “Cruelty? Cruelty?” Her mother extended her neck like a goose about to strike. “Why! I never!” She put her hand on the door lever. They were doing seventy-eight in the fast lane. “If I’m such a burden to you—” Her mother gathered Jojo in her arms, leaned over and—

  “What are you doing?”

  Her mother lunged for the door, shoulder leading.

  Randi fumbled for the childproof lock button. “Are you crazy?” The right rear window went down then the left. Damn it! Click. Locked.

  Both of them sat there, breathing hard, as if they were in the ring, tenth round coming up. Randi fought to hold the wheel steady. “Oh my God, that’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.”

  “Enough. I’ve had it with your mouth. Don’t say another word to me.”

  “Gladly.”

  A stop at the grocery store on the way home was unavoidable. Her mother stared out the window, a wad of Kleenex in her hand, Jojo asleep on her lap and Shane watching everything very carefully. Randi left them in the truck so she could shop in peace.

  ****

  Half an hour later, supper was grilled cheese, sans tomato soup this time, served with a side of pickle spears and zero conversation. Shane and Jojo made more noise over their meal than Randi and her mother did. Randi’s guts churned. The silence drove her crazy. The weight of it was a far heavier burden than arguing. At least with fighting came release. One thing that loosened lips as sure as any truth serum was tequila. “Be right back.” She deposited both of their plates in the sink. Shane squeezed through the door on her heels.

  Outside was a welcome change. A cool breeze ruffled Randi’s hair. Until then she hadn’t known she’d been sweating. She ran her fingers along the black and silver waves cresting Shane’s spine. “Talk about a cold shoulder. Even her dog gets into the act. I’ve never seen Jojo so standoffish.”

  Shane shook himself and trotted toward the orange grove that separated her house from Luke’s. The living room light was on at Luke’s place, along with the dining room chandelier and the overheads in two of the bedrooms. It’d become a habit, looking at his house to see which rooms had lights on, then imagining what he was doing inside. Tonight Dusty was in there too.

  She had a sudden longing for male companionship, and as soon as she broke through her mother’s ice, she’d head up there and see if Luke had learned anything else from Dusty about Gina and the rest of the Thorton family.

  Conversation trickled out of Luke’s kitchen window. Randi stopped short between two trees. She could have sworn one of the voices had a high pitch. Barbra? She listened intently for a few seconds but heard nothing more, and she didn’t see the Maserati parked out front. She shrugged. Could have been the TV. Had to be, actually. What was she thinking? Barbra couldn’t be at Luke’s house, she was at the horse show, right?

  She forced her brain back to the task at hand, found a ripe orange and pulled it off the branch. The limb strained as she pulled it down, releasing a shower of fragrant blosso
ms as it bounced back up. She savored the scent before rounding up the courage to face her mother. “Okay, Shaney-boy, back in the lion’s den we go. Wish us luck.”

  From beside the sink she pulled her sharpest knife out of the wooden block and sliced a couple of orange wedges. She poured two shots of Hornitos.

  Her mother moved to her side. “What’s this?”

  “Dessert.”

  “Tequila? And orange slices? What happened to limes?” Jojo bounced across Shane’s dog bed, trotting over his stuffed monkey. Abu squeaked under Jojo’s paws. Shane looked like he could use a shot or two.

  “I like this better. Try it.”

  “Ooh, noo.” Her mother wagged her finger. “Tequila makes my clothes fall off.”

  “That’s a country song.”

  “It’s true. Ask Jordan, that prick. He’ll tell you.

  Her mother seldom used slang. She preferred more technical terms. Didn’t matter. The dam between them had broken. That was the important thing.

  Randi smiled with relief. “I e-mailed him to see if he knew where you were.”

  “Did he answer?”

  “No.”

  “Like I said…”

  “Last I heard, when you called me from Texas, you two were on your way to Florida in that fancy motorhome of his, the ‘Big Chief’ or whatever.”

  “Road King.”

  “What happened?”

  “We had a falling out.” Her mother downed the tequila like a pro and banged the empty shot glass on the counter. “The last couple of weeks we were together, Jordan picked up a sudden interest in fishing. After a while, I got the feeling the bodies he was interested in weren’t the gilled variety. I also didn’t realize how quickly it would get old, touring the country with someone whose idea of a nice dinner is Jack In The Box and wine from a cardboard container. Couldn’t tell he had money from his taste in cuisine.”

  Randi groped for something appropriate to say, but all she could think of was that Jordan would get along nicely with Mel, given their mutual fondness for booze in a box. “Steve Copeland said that’s why you slept with him, to get back at Jordan.” Not the most tactful choice, but what the hell.

  Instead of flaring, her mother deflated like she’d been poked with a pin. “It was a moment of indiscretion. Nobody’s perfect.”

  “Copeland said you didn’t know about him and Gina until you saw a picture of them in his bathroom.”

  “They were in a swimming pool. Lots of palms all around. She was climbing him like a tree.” Her mother’s eyes grew sharp. “I can’t believe he told you about us.”

  “I asked.”

  “Sure is hard to keep a one-night stand secret, even at my age.”

  “Especially at your age.” Randi laughed.

  Her mother didn’t.

  “You weren’t really going to jump out of my truck, were you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Good, because then you wouldn’t get to see Dusty.”

  “Gina’s Dusty? He’s here?”

  “Yep. Drove in today. He’s staying with Luke.” She thought about what Dusty had said about the man with the accent. “Does Copeland use drugs?”

  “I’m not sure, but he’s from Jamaica. If you’re counting marijuana, it’s more of an institution in that country than a crime.”

  “I’m not talking about weed. I mean pills that make you change your mind about the way you perceive things. Or make you pass out if you have too much.”

  “I don’t know anything about that. Can I have another shot?”

  Randi poured, knowing the more her mother drank, the more likely she would be to answer to her next line of questioning. “So…listen, Mom, I know you don’t really want to talk about this…”

  Second shot of tequila. Gone. “Then don’t ask.”

  “You need to tell me why you took off and went to Dad’s. Joe’s going to ask you the same thing downtown tomorrow morning, so you might as well go ahead and practice your answer on me.”

  Her mother’s phone rang from where it had finally been reunited with its charger. Her mother, obviously gleeful for the interruption, scurried to the bathroom and shut the door. Randi heard her half of the conversation anyway. Privacy in this place was nonexistent.

  “Now?” Her mother sounded surprised. “Are you sure?” A long pause followed. “Okay. We’re on the way.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  From beneath the carport, the blackness of a Rancho del Zorro night—streetlights forbidden, moon not yet up—encompassed everything. Most evenings Randi found it comforting, but tonight a sinister feeling, however clichéd, hung over her bungalow and its surroundings. Cue the creepy movie soundtrack.

  She glanced at her mother sitting in the passenger seat. “When Dainsworth called you just now, did he specifically say, ‘Leave Shane and Jojo behind’?”

  “He’s got an overnight client who’s intimidated by other dogs.”

  “We could leave them in the truck.”

  Her mother shook her head. “Jojo’s exhausted from traveling all day.”

  “No doubt.”

  Her mother glowered. “She’d be upset if we left her by herself. She needs her big brother.”

  Randi rolled her eyes but shut her mouth. She and her mother had experienced a tiny sliver of peace, and she wasn’t ready for it to go away. “I just wanna curl up with Shane and a bowl of popcorn and watch a feel-good romantic comedy. I left a message for Joe, telling him what Dusty said about Copeland ordering the GHB, so there’s nothing more to be done tonight. Andrew assured me Copeland’s staying in town, so it’s up to the cops now.” She drove up the driveway. “What does Dainsworth want from us anyway?”

  “Us? He only mentioned me.”

  “Then why do I have to go?”

  “I can’t drive this beast of a truck.”

  “Yes you can.”

  “Not in the dark. I’d crash into a tree. Is that what you want?”

  “Oh, please. By the way, we’ve switched places, I don’t have my cell in case we need to call someone. It’s charging. I thought we were in for the night.”

  “I have mine. The dogs will be okay.”

  Of course the dogs would be okay. Why wouldn’t they? They rolled past Luke’s house, gravel crunching beneath the tires. A warm, yellow glow filled his living room and licks of light from the fireplace flickered in the window. If she had to leave her cozy bungalow, she’d much rather be warming herself on her boss’s sofa with a glass of champagne, instead of taking her mother to see that quack Dylan Dainsworth.

  “I see you looking up there.” Her mother smiled.

  “Looking where?”

  “At Luke’s. You’ve got a hunger in your eyes.”

  “A hunger? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “When are you going to tell him you’re interested?”

  “Interested in what?”

  “Miranda, quit taking me for some kind of fool.”

  At the top of the driveway, Randi put on the brakes. “I work for him, Mom. End of story.” If only she could convince herself that easy. She checked both ways, flicked the turn signal down and eased the Ford onto the main road. Putting on the high beams, she focused on the strip of pavement unfolding in front of her.

  “Keep in mind,” her mother said, “if you’re not into him, there are plenty of women who are.”

  “Really?” She sped into the curve. “If he’s so easy, let them have him.” She couldn’t help but adding, “He’s not as perfect as you like to think.”

  “Is that so?” Her mother twisted in her seat. “Name some faults.”

  “Okay…well, for starters, he’s got an ego.”

  Her mother scoffed. “What man doesn’t? It’s a good thing. He needs it for his job. Low self-esteem is far worse.”

  “Okay…two, he hangs around with Barbra Dubois.”

  “No, no, no.” Her mother wagged a finger. “I’ve been paying attention. Barbra hangs around with him. Big differen
ce.”

  How could she have been paying attention when she skipped town? “Three. He’s got kids. Teenagers.”

  “So? From everything you’ve told me, he’s a good dad.”

  “Yeah, but his children are OPK.”

  “Other People’s Kids?” Her mother chuckled. “You remember the term? So what?”

  “They’re seen in a different light. I get it now.”

  “He can have more, you know, and with your strong European blood and his mixed Scandinavian and Native American genes, a Randi-Luke cross would have excellent bloodlines.”

  “I can’t believe you just said that to me. I refuse to dignify that with a response.”

  Ten minutes later Randi nosed the F150 up to Dainsworth’s motorhome, turned off the engine and dropped the keys in her purse.

  Her mother got out without a word. The easy mood following their semi-reconciliation had evaporated. The root of the problem was her mother not apologizing for running out on her in the first place. Worse, she refused to talk about it. Until she took that step, it would be impossible for the two of them to move forward.

  Her mother stuck her head inside the cab. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “I thought you just wanted a driver.”

  “Why are you so difficult? Of course I want you to come in with me. Hurry up.”

  ****

  Dainsworth met them in his Hugh Hefner-style satin smoking jacket and scuff slippers. Pale, skinny calves protruded beneath the robe. He waved them in and offered seats at the table.

  A medium-sized ivory-colored dog, with doll-like black eyes and a tail curled in a perfect U-shape over its back, dashed from its crate to sniff their ankles.

  Her mother squealed with delight. “If you aren’t the cutest thing I’ve ever seen! Next to Jojo, of course, but that goes without saying.” She cocked her head at Dainsworth. “Is he a Samoyed?”

  Randi recognized the breed. “American Eskimo.”

  The dog sat, pawing the air with its front legs.

  Her mother shook her head. “I don’t think so. What is he, Dylan?”

  “Your daughter’s right.” Dainsworth beamed at Randi, like he was handing out a prize, but the smile she returned was curt. She hadn’t forgotten the crap he said about her—that she needed to get her act together—decide what she wanted out of life, blah, blah, blah.