“This is what you get for not talking to your mother more often,” Ghita chided. “It’s the fickle hand of fate coming to get you at last. Do you know how many people have called me about the article in the paper? I lost count at twenty. I have people offering to come spank you, which I’m not exactly sure how to take.”
“Ma,” Mary Grace said warningly. “I need a fresh perspective. I need inventiveness. I need your help. You helped with Trey’s house. Come on. Spill for baby.”
“All right, cara,” her mother replied reasonably. “You can’t find an unknown woman, or maybe man, in a red wig and a trench coat, because you know nothing about him/her. What about using your brain and the shopping skills I taught you?”
“Okay,” Mary Grace said skeptically. “What are we talking about? I can’t shop for a bad guy/girl, especially if I don’t know who they are.”
Ghita clucked her tongue. “This woman with the wig. Or man, I suppose. The trench coat. Was it cheap? Or was it something you’d buy somewhere we shop?”
Mary Grace thought about it. “No. I’m not sure. Nice try, Ma. I didn’t get a good look at it. She hit me from behind at the mall. And all I saw for three seconds was her back from a hundred feet before she vanished behind a tractor.”
Ghita considered that. “You couldn’t tell from the security tape?”
“No, it wasn’t close enough for the details we’d need. It could have been London Fog or it could have been a knock-off purchased off the street. The feed was a little blurry.”
“Okay, you need to find out something else, then,” Ghita deduced. “We’ve accounted for two people who were there the night you were shot. Trey Kennebrew and Jack Covington. Provided we assume they really aren’t responsible for that act.”
“I can’t say that I’m 100% certain,” Mary Grace said wryly, “but I think we can go with that assumption.”
“And this other person, Lolita Lewis, you say she didn’t recognize you.”
“She could have been faking, I guess,” Mary Grace allowed. “I wouldn’t have thought so, however.”
Ghita sighed. “So what we have left is your mommy person with her multiple and practically useless warnings.”
“Deep Throat Mommy,” Mary Grace confirmed.
“Couldn’t you have come up with a better nickname, dear?”
“Her idea, Ma,” Mary Grace said, glad to be in the clear of that one. “Maybe she’s a big Woodward and Bernstein fan. Or she likes antique porno.”
“What about drawing her picture, Mary Grace?” Ghita suggested.
“Okay, but who am I going to show it to?”
“She’s got a baby, one who needs to be carried around, right?” Ghita didn’t wait for an answer. “I think you should follow that baby.”
“Say what, Ma?”
“So what was she wearing?”
“Deep Throat Mommy?”
“No, Aretha Franklin, you dope,” Ghita snapped. “Of course I mean Deep Throat Mommy. How dreadfully vulgar. Your father wanted to watch that movie once and I-”
“Nothing that stands out,” Mary Grace interjected rapidly, not wanting to hear anymore on that particular subject. “Black T-shirt. Old Levi’s. Well-used Nikes. Comfortable clothes. She said she liked my shoes once. So I’m guessing she’s wearing mommy-gear.”
“It is the best thing to do when you have an infant,” Ghita acknowledged. “The last thing a sensible woman wants to do is to put on heels and make up when a baby is going to puke repeatedly across her shoulder in the following hour.”
“Her clothing wasn’t anything special,” Mary Grace went on. “I couldn’t tell you what store they came out of. Nothing high end. Didn’t look like trash, either.”
“Too bad,” Ghita gritted. “Then you would have had a starting point. What about Callie’s idea, making a statement to the press about No. 3? Although the idea of you becoming more of a target than you already are frightens me considerably.”
“I could show the drawing to the paper, but since the police aren’t interested in Deep Throat Mommy, why would they be?” Mary Grace took a deep breath. Her mind was caught on something. “Ma,” she said suddenly. “She wasn’t wearing anything special, but the baby was.”
“The baby?”
“Yes, the baby. A blonde haired, blue eyed boy named Johnny. He was in a sling. And he had on a nice little boy’s outfit. I just didn’t recognize it because I don’t normally look at baby’s clothes.”
“Tell me about it,” Ghita muttered.
“Where do I look for baby stuff?”
“How much time do you have?”
“Enough,” Mary Grace said.
“All right,” Ghita said. “If the police won’t do anything, the Castilla’s will. Draw the picture and make copies. Every Castilla in town is going shopping tomorrow. And anyone else I can think to involve.”
Mary Grace sniffed and nearly barfed. Then it dawned on her why her cousin was so interested in getting rid of the car. As it started to warm up, it smelled like something had crawled up into the engine and died there and the engine was slowly cooking the putrefied remains. “I need some Lysol, Ma.”
“I don’t know what that has to do with the price of tea in China,” Ghita said. “But I’m sure your aunt has some.”
“Oh, yeah, I’ve got to go tell Callie something bad, so I’ll be over after supper or after I’m done with confession, okay? I’ve got quite a list to talk over with Father Patrick.”
•
Aunt Sophia’s house was full, mainly of female relatives who could relate to Mary Grace’s problems, but with a few male relatives who were there not only to aid but to tease Mary Grace mercilessly. Additionally, there were several of Callie’s siblings and their children, and of course, Callie had been carried in by two of Sophia’s sons. There were some maternal relatives on Mary Grace’s side who were happy to participate. The cousin who had loaned her the Monza was noticeably not present.
Mary Grace knew exactly why. It was the same reason that she had used up three cans of deodorizer in the car and sprayed a complete bottle of Givenchy Amarige eau de toilette over the interior. Unfortunately, it still smelled like something dead being fried, except it was covered with perfume.
Intent on her laptop, Mary Grace determined silently that she could wear a nose clip in the car until her Explorer was ready to drive again. Ghita pointed over her daughter’s shoulder, “What about that one?”
They were looking at photographs of baby slings on the Internet. It turned out that Aunt Sophia had a wireless network and Mary Grace was happy to avail herself of it. “It had a pattern on it,” she told her mother. “Keep looking. Something with embroidered flowers. Not plain material. And the baby kind of sat inside it. He wasn’t enveloped in it. How does the baby avoid being suffocated?”
“What about this one?” Callie said from the couch, her laptop propped on her stomach and her cast-bound leg supported by pillows. She turned the screen toward Mary Grace. Mary Grace squinted.
“No. It didn’t have stripes like that.”
Mary Grace rubbed her eyes. She had been at her aunt’s house for nearly two hours and they hadn’t narrowed it down. One cousin had a list of every baby oriented store in the metroplex and it wasn’t a small list. Additionally, it didn’t include chain stores that normally supplied baby goods as par for the course, like Wal-Mart, Target, and K-Mart. But Mary Grace was certain that what the child had been using wasn’t available in a typical chain store. She had an eye for quality.
“Did it have buckles on it?” another aunt asked as she looked at Aunt Sophia’s computer on the dining table in the next room.
Mary Grace thought about it. “Yes, buckles at the shoulder and I think at the waist. It wasn’t coming off her anytime soon.”
“Come look at this one, then,” the aunt said.
Mary Grace looked, blinked, and then looked again. “I think so. This could be…yes. What store is it in?”
“Babies Я Us,” the au
nt said. “But let me Google it and see if it’s available anywhere else.”
When she was done, Mary Grace had another long list. “$185 bucks for a piece of material with a couple of buckles. I thought I was being silly when I bought a $150 shirt made out of cotton.”
Ghita looked on critically. “We go to that store. We show them the woman’s face. If she shopped there once, chances are good that she shopped there more than once. Someone might recognize her. Let’s start divvying up where to look. And don’t forget to show them Mary Grace’s drawing of the little boy’s outfit. It might jar their memories.”
Mary Grace realized that her mother was like a drill sergeant. She organized swiftly and according to ability. Any moment she was going to demand that one of the cousins drop and give her twenty pushups. And the damnable thing about it was that the cousin would probably do it, too.
Callie shut her laptop and gave Mary Grace an idle stare as she came back into the living room. Mary Grace grimaced, gazing unerringly at the cast on her leg, thinking about the Mazda Miata, the first new car Callie had ever purchased, a car that was now a layer of flattened scrap metal. “I’m really sorry,” she said. “About your car.”
Shrugging, Callie said, “I didn’t like the color. I’m getting a blue one next time. Maybe one of those killer Mustangs with the stripes. Leather seats. XM Radio. Big engine.” She frowned at her cast. “But I’m going to need an automatic for a while.”
Mary Grace cringed.
“Oh, fer God’s sake,” Callie swore. “It wasn’t your fault. Either time. You didn’t know he or she was going to mow me down. It was my idea to go ransack Jack’s place. And as for the wrecking ball on my car, I’m not sure how No. 3 could have planned for you to park where you did. After all, you could have gotten an empty spot right next to the door. I think the person saw where you parked and thought it was…serendipity. Maybe he or she saw that the construction crew wasn’t paying attention to who was doing what and saw an opportunity. How could you have possibly known about that?”
“If I had known I would have taken my cousin’s Monza and parked it there instead,” Mary Grace said seriously.
“Huh?” Callie said. “Listen, you know I can’t come with you to these stores, so be careful, goober.”
“What’s No. 3 going to do while I’m in the baby store?” Mary Grace asked, only half serious.
Callie regarded Mary Grace thoughtfully. “He hasn’t called you,” she said.
“I haven’t checked my messages,” Mary Grace said loftily. She had stopped looking at her machine at home when the number reached 99. Apparently, that was as high as the machine was willing to go or it had run out of space. As for her cell phone, she hadn’t turned it on for the day. “And he said that no one could be as unlucky as I am. Callie, he implied that I was doing this for publicity.”
“A moment of anger?” Callie asked but didn’t wait for Mary Grace to answer. “I imagine he’s feeling somewhat helpless. A guy like that likes to be in charge. Scary for him to lose control. Seeing someone he really likes in deep pookies could give him quite a scare. Closing the laptop’s lid, she looked out the window. “At least the car being crushed didn’t make the paper this morning.”
“The detective said he’d try to keep it off the blotter until Monday,” Mary Grace said thankfully, wondering when Callie had taken counseling courses.
“I like that guy,” Callie commented. “But he’s kind of all macho and determined wrapped up in a muscle-bound package. I don’t know if I could take that his-way-his-way-his-way all the time.”
“That’s it,” Mary Grace exclaimed. “Sure the sex is great, but he’s got to be the boss dawg. I can’t have an idea in my head and it’s my head on the chopping block, not his.” She thought about that. “Er-under the wrecking ball? Beside the gun? Whatever.”
“Stubborn?” Callie supplied helpfully, looking out the window again.
“Yes. Opinionated. Obstinate. Pig headed. Know it all.”
“Reminds me of you,” Callie said idly.
“Me? I’m not-” Mary Grace paused. “Sometimes I am.”
Callie reached down and brought up her purse. She dug inside and then handed Mary Grace something. It was a compact Taser gun. “Here,” she said. “Take it. Mama gave it to me last night for future protection. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it wouldn’t have made a difference even if I had gotten it out in time before the car hit me. Except maybe I could have tased myself. My brother said he tried it out on himself and was wiping up drool for the next three hours. He said his nipples burned for a full day.” She smothered a giggle at the mental image.
Mary Grace took it carefully, staring at it warily. It weighed about four pounds, which was heavier than it looked, and had a faux leopard skin cover. “Very posh,” she said dryly.
“You turn that switch on,” Callie said and pointed. A laser beam came on. “Point the laser where you want the probes to go. The probes shoots out with wires attached and hopefully gets the guy right in the ball sacs. Then electricity shoots through the line and incapacitates him for the duration. Or until you can leave town. What did Mama say? Oh, yes. Fifteen feet is about the length you can shoot. So wait until you can see the whites of their eyes. And scream a lot.”
“Thanks,” Mary Grace said slowly. “I think. Is it legal in Texas?”
Callie gave Mary Grace a strange look. “You could carry around an elephant gun in Texas and it’s legal.”
Then Ghita complained loudly from the other room, “There are how many Babies Я Us stores in the metroplex? Good God, I had no idea. Everyone is having grandchildren but me. It’s just utterly awful. You think I can slip fertility drugs into Mary Grace’s latte without her noticing the triplets she produces?”
Shrugging wryly, Callie pointed out the window. “I think they just changed off. It was a dark brown sedan with Brogan sitting in it. They spoke to each other for a minute and Brogan drove off. Now it’s that guy watching the house in the blue sedan. Maybe he doesn’t want to talk to you, but he does want to keep you safe.”
Mary Grace hurried to the window and looked out to see the other detective sitting in his car drinking his coffee. She remembered his name was Jones. Jones saw her looking out of the window and waved cheerfully. She bit her lip and didn’t wave back.
•
Ghita handed out her lists and everyone went along their merry way. The plan was to hit every store that sold the baby sling and show the drawing of Deep Throat Mommy. Then they would show the drawing of the baby’s outfit and see if the clerks remembered the pair or anything about them. They had to work quickly because some of the smaller or family owned stores would be closing earlier on Saturdays than the bigger chains.
Mary Grace took one of the Babies Я Us stores and three smaller baby boutiques nearest to where she lived. As it turned out it wasn’t that near to her house. She didn’t look at Jones in the sedan, but she didn’t speed away in the Monza either. After driving in the little car for fifteen minutes, what she really wanted to do was to try the Taser gun on her cousin who had loaned her the car.
Thanking providence that the newspaper article hadn’t included a head shot of her, Mary Grace tried the baby boutiques first. The first one had a clerk who threatened to call the police on her. Apparently, she was less than trusting of people in general and Mary Grace’s story didn’t hold any water with her in particular. Without waiting to see what reaction the clerk had, Mary Grace gestured at the detective in the blue sedan and told the clerk that guy was the police and left.
The second one she went to was where she came up with the long lost sister story, dredged from imagination in order to solicit the highest oh-you-poor-thing quotient. “Kidnapped at fourteen by our grandmother,” she said solemnly to a middle aged woman with pink streaks in her hair. Mary Grace managed to let a small tear go from one of her eyes. The woman obediently looked at the drawing. “This is what she’d look like if she was thirty-two. Poor Millicent. Every one
of us prays for her daily.”
The middle aged woman looked back at Mary Grace. “But she’s got light hair in your drawing. And you’ve got black hair.”
“I got the dark Italian genes. Millicent got the light ones,” Mary Grace explained rapidly. “Or least she did when she was fourteen. Ma had blonde hair.”
“Sorry, I don’t recognize her,” the clerk said regretfully. “I know the sling you mentioned though. I sold one last week to a family from Canton. No blondes in that family. No one who looked like her.” She tapped the drawing.
“Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. They were black.” The woman chuckled. “I don’t think they could fake that.”
Mary Grace showed the copy of the drawing of the baby’s outfit. “Do you carry this, by chance?”
The woman looked and shook her head. “Sorry again. We only carry certain lines of clothing. That isn’t one of them.”
Mary Grace thanked the woman and went on to the third baby boutique. The young woman manning the place was happy to look at Mary Grace’s drawings. She didn’t know the woman or the baby’s outfit. Furthermore, she said they hadn’t carried that line of slings for over a year. It was a little too expensive for their clientele.
Disgruntled, Mary Grace moved onto Babies Я Us. It was a big baby merchandise extravaganza. She saw things in there that she didn’t know babies needed much less were made. She also started with the manager of the store. He was a fortyish man who listened to her story with half an eye cocked on the clients in the store. He glanced at the drawing and shook his head. Then he looked at the outfit. “Sure,” he said. “We carry that one. It was on sale a few weeks ago. Still on the racks, too.”
Mary Grace froze. “Is there any way you can tell me who you sold these outfits to? And maybe if they sold them to the same person who bought the baby sling?”
“Only if they paid with a credit card,” he replied equably, as if people came in every day asking for information about the store’s patrons. “And I’m not giving you any credit card information. I don’t need to talk to the company lawyers to tell you we can’t give that out without a subpoena.”
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