Guns, Wives and Chocolate

by Sally Berneathy

  She rose slowly, a woman in a trance. “No. Chuck loved me.” She speared Fred with a look of pure loathing. “Why would you say something like that? You’re meaner than that woman! You go to hell!”

  She charged out the door.

  “I’ll be sure she gets home all right.” Trent followed her.

  I looked at Fred. “That went well.”

  “About as well as I expected.”

  Chapter Four

  A night spent with Trent is always good, but my antique bed was too small to accommodate four of us...me, Trent, Henry, and Grace’s dilemma. I could have shoved Henry out of bed, but I couldn’t stop obsessing about Grace. Unfortunately my obsessions tend to pour out through my mouth. When Trent and Henry both began snoring, I had to obsess silently. That was tough.

  Life had not dealt kindly with Grace. Her mother was dead, she didn’t know who her father was, she’d been Rickhead-ized, then Chuck died on her and posthumously revealed he’d betrayed her.

  My crazy life was smooth in comparison.

  Finally I slept and dreamed about Chuck surrounded by women of all shapes and sizes in bridal gowns.

  The next day after a late brunch of leftovers, Trent went home and Henry went out to patrol his territory.

  I closed the door behind them and pondered whether I should go to Grace’s to console her, go next door to Paula’s to update her, or go to Fred’s to see if he’d found out anything else about Chuck’s other wife.

  Be a good neighbor? Share the gossip? Try to find out more gossip?

  Share the gossip won. Paula needed to know what was happening right across the street from her.

  I opened my front door.

  George stood on my porch holding a bouquet of slightly wilted flowers. He smiled.

  I frowned.

  He extended the flowers to me.

  I made no move to take them.

  “I wanted to apologize for yesterday,” he said.

  I groaned deep inside. An apology, however false, must be accepted. “Apology accepted. Good-bye.” I started to close the door.

  He grabbed the door frame. “No, wait! Please, I brought you flowers to show I’m sorry. I didn’t know my friends would be so rowdy.”

  “I’m allergic to flowers.” Yes, it was a lie, but he started it. Didn’t know his friends would be so rowdy? Please!

  I slammed the door on his hand.

  He cursed and yanked his fingers away.

  I closed and locked the door.

  He knocked again. “My grandma and grandpa are real upset with me,” he yelled. “I just want to make this right.”

  What he wanted was another chance to dig up my basement and look for the drug money he’d hidden there. The condition of his flowers indicated he might have been waiting all morning for Trent to leave. I had no idea how much longer he’d stay.

  I went out through the kitchen. As I made my way to Paula’s back door, I peeked around the bushes and saw an older model beige sedan parked in front of my house. I would not go home until that car was gone.

  I knocked on Paula’s back door then made faces while she peered through the peephole, took off the chain, and unlocked both deadbolts. With her ex in prison for the rest of his life, she’s not as paranoid as she used to be, but old paranoia dies hard.

  “Come in,” she invited. “I’d ask why you’re using the back door, but I probably don’t want to know.”

  “You don’t, but I’m going to tell you anyway.”

  “Anlinny!” Zach rushed up and flung his arms around me, almost toppling me. The kid’s growing. He grabs me around my thighs now, an improvement over grabbing me around my knees.

  I tousled his soft hair. He’s going to be tall like his worthless dad, but his blond hair, blue eyes, and sweet temperament come from his mother. “Hi, Hot Shot.”

  He looked up. “Uncle Matthew got me a truck that goes all by itself and it has a real horn. Did you bring cookies?”

  “Sorry, no cookies today.” Kid gets his chocolate addiction from his Aunt Lindsay. I’m glad I can have a positive influence on a growing child.

  “Go play with your new truck.” Paula turned him toward the living room.

  “Okay.” He ran from the room, short legs churning.

  “Does he ever walk?” I asked.

  “Only when it’s time to go to bed or take a bath. Then he drags along very slowly.” She sat in a chair at the kitchen table. “Tell me about George’s party.”

  She’d turned down an invitation. She didn’t want her four-year-old son around criminals. I didn’t blame her. Instead, she and Matthew, the man she’d been tentatively involved with for about a year, had taken Zach to the park. After her experience with Zach’s father, it was taking her a while to trust again. Matthew was patient.

  I slumped into a chair across from her. “The party was a nightmare, and things went downhill from there.” I told her about George’s friends diverting me while George snuck down to the basement. “As soon as Trent left this morning, George showed up at my door with half-dead flowers, trying to con his way inside again.”

  Paula grimaced. “Too bad you don’t know where that money went so you can tell him and get rid of him.”

  She suspected that I knew, but I was keeping the secret. That’s not an easy thing for me to do.

  I changed the subject. “Rickhead bought the house across the street from you, and he’s renting it to Grace and her new husband, Chuck, except yesterday Chuck died an unattended death so it’s just Grace and Rickie, and we found out Chuck’s a bigamist.”

  “You lost me right after Grace and Chuck renting the house.”

  A large green truck zoomed into the kitchen and honked. And honked and honked and honked.

  “Zachary!” Paula said.

  Zach came into the room holding a remote control and giggling.

  “Stop making so much noise or you’re going to be in big trouble,” Paula warned.

  The truck quit honking, but Zach didn’t quit giggling. He doesn’t find his mother very intimidating. He’s never seen her go up against a psycho. I have.

  “Take your truck back in the living room,” she said.

  He ran to my side and laid his head in my lap, still giggling.

  “Hey, Hot Shot, you better do what your mother says or she may spank you.”

  We both giggled at that.

  Zach and his truck zoomed into the living room.

  I gave Paula more details about the events of the previous day.

  She sighed. “I liked it better when you talked fast and jumbled everything together. It sounds like we may have a murderer living across the street.”

  “Stop that. We don’t know Chuck was murdered, but even if he was, we know Grace didn’t do it.”

  “We do?”

  “Yes, we do. You should have seen the way she looked at him. She loved him. She was heart-broken when he died, and very upset when she found out about his other wife.”

  Zach zoomed back into the room and over to his mother. “Mommy, I’m hungry. I want ice cream.”

  Paula wrapped her arms around him. “How about a grilled cheese sandwich instead?”

  “Anlinny wants ice cream,” he said.

  “Aunt Lindsay has already eaten,” I said. “Maybe later.”

  “Okay.” He scampered back into the living room.

  Paula rose and went to the refrigerator.

  I went to the window on the side of the kitchen. The trees were budding, but I could see the street in front of my house. George’s car was still there. I wanted to avoid going home until he left. “I think I’ll check on Grace.”

  Paula stood with a loaf of bread in one hand and a package of cheese in the other. “You need to think about what you said.”

  “That Zach can have ice cream later? You know you’ll give in.”

  “You said Grace was very upset when she found out Chuck had another wife.”

  “Duh.”

  “Upset enough to kill him?” />
  “No!”

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t visit her alone.”

  Paula really is a nice person, but sometimes she’s a little overly-cautious about people. She used to be a lot overly-cautious. I knew her for a year before she finally told me she’d killed her husband. Well, she hadn’t really killed him, but she thought she did. Who keeps a secret like that? If I’d killed Rickhead, I’d have taken out a billboard on I-70 inviting everyone to party in my jail cell.

  I went out Paula’s front door and ran across the street to Grace’s house as fast as I could in case George was watching.

  Grace wasn’t crying when she answered the door. A good sign.

  “Come in, Lindsay. A friend of yours is here helping me unpack.”

  A friend? I didn’t have that many friends. It wasn’t Paula. I’d just left her. Not likely Fred. Maybe Sophie.

  Grace stepped back and held the door open.

  At the end of the plaid sofa where Chuck had died yesterday George Murray clutched a cardboard box and looked guilty.

  “What’s he doing here?” I demanded.

  “George brought me some flowers. He said the living should enjoy flowers.” Grace bit her lip. “Because the dead person at the funeral can’t.” Tears flooded her eyes.

  “And he’s helping you unpack? How sweet.” What was George up to? I wanted to tell her that he wasn’t my friend, he wasn’t her friend, that she couldn’t trust him, and that he’d brought me the flowers first which certainly proved she couldn’t trust him.

  But Grace had been dealt enough reality blows lately. The best I could do was to mitigate whatever con George was working.

  I gave him my you’re-in-big-trouble-now look. It had the same effect on him that it has on Henry. None.

  “George said he knew how hard it would be for me to come across Chuck’s things while I’m unpacking,” Grace said, “so he’s helping.”

  A sheen of perspiration appeared on George’s forehead. “Yeah, uh, I remember when I lost my mom and dad. It’s tough going through their—you know—pictures and clothes and stuff.”

  Pictures and clothes and stuff? What was George looking for in Chuck’s pictures and clothes and stuff?

  Was he searching for something so important he’d murdered Chuck to get it?

  How could I get him out of there without upsetting Grace?

  I’d have to make up a story, which isn’t the same thing as lying. Ask Michael Connelly or Patricia Cornwell or J. K. Rowling.

  “Your cell phone must be turned off, George,” I said. “Your grandmother called me. She needs you to come home right away.”

  His eyes narrowed. “My cell phone’s on. She could have called me.”

  “Cell phones are so unreliable. Maybe you need to change your provider.”

  Grace went to his side. “You go on home. I’ll be fine. Thank you so much for helping.”

  “I’m always glad to help.” George’s soft voice was in direct contradiction to the threat in his eyes when he looked at me. “Maybe after I take care of whatever Nana wants, I could pick up a pizza and come back. Your kid like pizza?”

  Grace beamed. “Rickie loves pizza. So do I.”

  “I’ll put this box in the bedroom for you. I’m sure Nana can wait another five minutes.” He climbed the stairs.

  I followed.

  He turned into the first bedroom. I stopped in the doorway. He set the box on a dresser and slit the tape.

  “What the hell are you up to?” I demanded.

  He spun around, a knife in his hand. “I’m trying to be a nice guy. What the hell are you up to?”

  I gulped and took a step backward.

  Surely he wouldn’t use that knife on me with Grace downstairs.

  “You need to mind your own business and stay out of mine.” He folded the knife and put it in his pocket.

  Whew.

  He pushed past me.

  I didn’t try to stop him. Instead I looked around the bedroom to figure out what he’d been doing.

  The room looked ordinary. A queen size bed with a bookcase headboard. A dresser and two chests of drawers, not matched, not new. Unopened boxes were stacked along one wall with empty boxes along the other.

  I looked inside the box George had opened. Men’s clothing.

  “You don’t like him, do you?”

  I spun around. I hadn’t heard Grace come in. “He just got out of prison.”

  “He told me. Everybody makes mistakes. Reckon I’ve made a few myself.”

  That reminded me... “Where’s Rickie?”

  “In his room, playing on his computer. He’s pretty tore up about Chuck dying, but he doesn’t like to admit it.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “My little boy is growing up. It would have been good for him to have a dad.”

  “Yeah.” Too bad the sperm donor, Rickhead, was such a sorry excuse for a father. He was also a sorry excuse for a human being, but that’s another story.

  “George said I shouldn’t believe that woman who claims to be married to Chuck. He said she’s just trying to cause trouble. Probably an old girlfriend, somebody he dumped when he met me.”

  I opened my mouth to protest that Fred had found the marriage certificate then closed it without speaking. Did it really matter? Chuck was dead. If it made Grace feel better to believe he loved only her, what did it hurt?

  I turned back to the box George had set on the dresser. “I’ll help you unpack.”

  “Thanks. It is pretty hard, finding one of Chuck’s shirts or a picture of us. I miss him so much.”

  Whatever George was planning, I was going to stop him. I would not let him make Grace’s life any worse. “This appears to be a box of his clothes. Does it need to be unpacked or, uh...?” Maybe too soon to suggest donating his clothes to charity.

  Someone knocked loudly on the front door.

  Had George come back? “I’ll go.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll get it.”

  We raced down the stairs and through the living room toward the front door.

  I have longer legs.

  I yanked open the door. A blond Amazon with tightly clenched lips stood there.

  “I’m Stella Mayfield!” She punched me in the jaw.

  Chapter Five

  I staggered backward into the house.

  Grace flew past me and head-butted the woman who was easily twice her size.

  They fell into a mass of arms and legs.

  Somebody screamed.

  Somebody cursed.

  I got my balance and started outside to help Grace. The Amazon—Stella Mayfield—would annihilate her.

  Before I got through the door, Rickie shoved me aside and dove into the fray.

  The cursing and screaming intensified.

  Now I had to save Grace and Rickie both.

  I grabbed the door frame, righted myself again, and charged out.

  Stella was on her back with Grace on top of her, pulling her hair with one hand and punching her in the face with the other. Rickie had a foot on her thigh and was yanking her leg upward with both hands, bending the knee the wrong way.

  Clearly I wasn’t needed except maybe to save Stella who was doing most of the screaming.

  I tapped Rickie on the shoulder. “Um, maybe you shouldn’t be doing that so hard. You could break her leg.”

  Rickie grinned and gave an extra tug.

  Stella screamed louder.

  “Bitch deserves it, saying she’s married to my daddy.”

  Rickie’s inappropriate language was appropriate for the occasion.

  I moved closer to Grace but not so close she might accidentally hit me. “I think you won. You should probably let her up now.”

  She didn’t even glance at me. “You want to take a swing? I bet your jaw hurts.”

  Yes, it hurt, but I didn’t have a clue how to throw a punch. Besides, I didn’t want to damage the hands that create chocolate masterpieces.

  “No, you go ahead. But remember, if you kill her, you
’ll go to jail.”

  Grace got to her feet, straddling Stella but not hitting her anymore.

  Stella put her hands over her face and screamed again.

  Rickie hadn’t stopped torturing her leg.

  Grace stepped away from the woman, put a hand on her son’s shoulder, and gave a brief nod. He released Stella’s leg, stood, kicked her and called her another bad name.

  Stella sat up cautiously.

  “Who the hell are you?” Grace demanded. “What are you doing here and why did you hit my friend?”

  Her friend? Was she talking about me?

  Stella wiped blood from her mouth with the back of her hand and squinted at me through swollen eyes. “I’m Chuck Mayfield’s wife.”

  Grace drew back her fist. “I’m Chuck Mayfield’s wife.”

  The woman looked at me. “Then who are you?”

  “I’m not Chuck Mayfield’s wife.”

  She turned to Grace, her dark eyes slits of fury. “You’re the one who said all those awful things to me on Facebook.” She struggled to her feet, clutching the porch rail for support.

  Grace balled her fists. “I’m not on Facebook.”

  Rickie stepped forward. “It was me. I tracked you down, you lying—”

  “You tracked her down?” Grace asked.

  “Wasn’t hard.”

  Grace beamed at her son. “You’re so smart.” She frowned. “You tell her where we live?”

  He straightened defiantly. “She’s got to apologize for calling you and telling you those lies.”

  Psychic prediction...that wasn’t going to happen.

  Grace turned back to Stella. “You the crazy woman that’s been calling from Luttrell Tractor?”

  Stella moved her head from side to side, the movement a mixture of uncertainty and pain. “I called my husband while I was sitting on our sofa in our house. Luttrell’s one of my husband’s accounts.”

  Grace stiffened. “My husband sold farm machinery to Luttrell.”

  “My husband sells farm machinery to Luttrell.”

  Grace and Stella glared at each other.

  “Let’s hit her some more, Mama,” Rickie said.

  “Maybe it’s a different Chuck Mayfield,” I suggested. I didn’t believe that, but I didn’t want to see another fight.