And Death Goes to . . .

by Laura Bradford

  Deidre’s ad hadn’t been the one playing on the screen as she reached the top of the spiral staircase. Maybe no one else noticed, but I had. And from what I could tell just before she fell, so, too, had Deidre.

  ~Chapter Five~

  Now that Tobias Advertising Agency was finally standing on its own two feet, one might think my occasional pang of longing for my former weekends-only gig at To Know Them Is To Love Them pet shop was a bit odd, and, on the surface, they would be right. Working there, part-time, had been a nuisance nine times out of ten—especially when I wanted to: one, sleep in; two, do something fun with my weekend; and three, keep my hands and arms scratch-free. But there had been good things about it, too.

  Like alone time with Mary Fran.

  Granted, that alone time had included bathing and grooming dogs who weren’t necessarily eager for such services (see above mentioned scratches), but now that I no longer needed to be there to pay my rent, I couldn’t help but notice the hint of emptiness I felt on the occasional Saturday and/or Sunday. Sometimes, when the emptiness was impossible to ignore, I even had to admit I kind of missed Rudder Malone.

  Rudder Malone was an African Gray Parrot who resided at the pet shop. Mary Fran liked to pretend no one had ever expressed an interest in purchasing the bird, but I knew better. In fact, I’d heard no less than six offers for Rudder during my time at the shop, but Mary Fran always had a reason he couldn’t be sold that particular day. When I’d questioned her, she’d pointed to some inexplicable “vibe” she got about the person—something that “worried” her, or “didn’t sit right.” But Sam and I knew the truth. Rudder had successfully wrapped the pet shop owner around his little beak.

  How, exactly, the winged irritant had accomplished that, I’m not sure. Especially when you took into account Rudder’s personality which, on the best of days, was downright cantankerous. He was bossy, impatient, sarcastic, relentless, and a troublemaker of epic proportions. And he loved to yank my chain, reminding me every time he saw me of a certain little habit I was working really hard to stop.

  Yet somehow, despite his laundry list of unattractive qualities, we all catered to him like he was some sort of royalty.

  Don’t get me wrong, there were nights I dreamed of ways to silence my fine-feathered nemesis once and for all. Heck, I’d even searched the internet for techniques to waterboard a parrot, but I also had a soft spot for Rudder I could neither explain nor deny with any believability.

  So when I stepped inside the pet shop and heard Rudder’s succession of snorts, it really didn’t come as any surprise that I smiled in response.

  For a second.

  Maybe two.

  “Good morning to you, too, Rudder,” I murmured.

  “Snort! Snort! S-nort!”

  I rolled my eyes and headed straight for the small hallway off the back of the shop. Sure enough, as I approached, I heard Mary Fran humming from inside her inner sanctum (aka closet-sized office).

  “‘Walking on Sunshine’ for the win!”

  Mary Fran stuck her head out into the hallway and grinned at me. “Very good. And the artist who sang it?”

  “Katrina and the Waves!”

  “Impressive.”

  “You taught me well.” I pulled her in for a quick hug and then stepped back for a thorough once over. “You’re still sporting the proud mama glow, you know that?”

  Mary Fran’s smile widened even more. “How can I not?”

  “You can’t. And you shouldn’t.” I stepped against the wall to let her pass and then followed her back out to the counter and the pair of stools tucked beneath its interior eave. “So did he sleep with his award?”

  “I tried to slip it out of his hand when I looked in on him this morning, but he woke up.”

  I laughed. “I’d have done the same thing if I won. No doubt, whatsoever.”

  Mary Fran’s smile slipped from her face. “Thank God you didn’t.”

  And, just like that, the lightness of the morning was gone. Although, in all fairness, any lightness I’d felt hadn’t started until I walked through the front door. “I still can’t believe it, you know?”

  “I know. Trust me.” Mary Fran scooted my stool around to me and then pulled out her own, stopping short of sitting on it like I did. “I tried to put it out of my mind for Sam’s sake, but once the party was over and we were back home, I found my thoughts going back to that awful, awful moment.”

  “I know. Me, too.” And it was true. Of the roughly four hours I was in my bed, I’d slept maybe forty-five minutes, and that was being generous. Still, I wasn’t sure I was ready to go down that unsettling road again just yet, so I changed the subject. To Rudder, of all things…

  “Has he had his morning kiwi yet?” I asked, waving my hand in Rudder’s general direction.

  “Mor-morning! Morn-ing ki-wi!”

  “Yes,” Mary Fran said to me before widening her glance to include Rudder. “And he knows he has.”

  “Mor-morning! Morn-ing ki-wi!”

  I laughed and snorted.

  “Snort! Snort! S-nort!”

  Dropping my head onto the top of the counter, I groaned. Loudly. “And to think I actually missed him a little this morning.”

  Mary Fran’s gasp alerted me to the words I hadn’t intended to ever say aloud, and I bolted upright on my stool. “You didn’t hear that!”

  “Oh yes, I did.”

  “Yes, yes I did!”

  This time when I groaned, it echoed around the store. “Ugh!”

  “Your secret is safe with me,” Mary Fran said, laughing.

  “Safe! Safe with me!”

  I shot a death glare at Rudder and then turned an exasperated sigh on my clearly amused friend. “He could drive a person to drink, you know that?”

  “I know. You’ve mentioned it before.”

  “Because it’s true.” I slipped off my stool, crossed to the small refrigerator behind the counter, and extracted the Tupperware container of kiwi normally reserved for Rudder and his far sweeter (read: less annoying) counterpart, Baboo. When Rudder began pecking at the side of his cage in anticipation, I simply pulled out a single piece of his favorite fruit, returned the container to the fridge, and then slowly placed the kiwi onto my tongue. “Mmmm…yummy, yummy kiwi.”

  “Now who’s being a pill?” Mary Fran asked through lips that were most definitely twitching.

  I closed my mouth, chewed the rest of my kiwi, and then swallowed dramatically. “He started it.”

  “Snort! Snort! S-nort!”

  Mary Fran held up her hands, crossing guard style. “Enough, you two. Enough.”

  I lowered my head in shame (not really, but I made it look good) and returned to my stool. “So when’s Drew coming home?”

  Mary Fran’s smile was back and I was glad. Especially considering the reason—a reason that, prior to January, had been on par with hell freezing over. “Friday.”

  “Your glow is back.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m happy for you, you know.”

  “I know that, too,” she said. “And I also know I have you to thank for it.”

  “Yes, yes you do.” I allowed myself a moment of mental back patting and then leaned against the edge of the counter. “That’s the thing with someone who’s really smitten, as my grandfather says. It drips off them.”

  Mary Fran lowered herself onto her own stool and eyed me closely. “Then I’m guessing you saw it dripping off him last night. At both the award show and your party.”

  “Him?” I echoed with a squeak.

  “Your grandfather.”

  I wanted to protest, to tell her she was seeing things that weren’t really there, but to do so would be akin to delusion, and I wasn’t the delusional type. Most days, anyway.

  I stood and wandered around the store, stopping ever
y few steps to peer into the cat cages, Max’s hamster condo, and at a half dozen goldfish that would likely end up in someone’s toilet within the next few months. “As much as I loved and miss my grandmother, I’m not opposed to my grandfather finding someone to live out his remaining days with, I’m really not. But Ms. Rapple? Seriously? I-I just don’t get what he sees in her.”

  “He doesn’t see her the way we do.”

  I made a fish face against the outside of the glass tank and when the fish didn’t respond, I shrugged and turned back to Mary Fran. “You mean he doesn’t see her as a mean, nasty shrew who has nothing nice to say to anyone, ever?”

  “She says nice things to your grandfather.” Mary Fran patted me back over to my stool, but when I didn’t heed the invitation, she joined me over by the bin of cat toys I felt a sudden need to organize. She let me arrange and rearrange for a few moments and then, when I tried to move on to the bin of dog toys, she grabbed my hand and held on until I looked at her. “She’s making him happy, Tobi.”

  I tried to speak, but all that came out on the first three attempts was an odd raspy noise and an audible swallow.

  “And, quite frankly, he’s softening her in return.”

  “Did you say softening?”

  Mary Fran nodded.

  “We’re still talking about Rapple, aren’t we?”

  Again, Mary Fran nodded.

  And again, I swallowed.

  “Did you not see the way she encouraged him to eat his vegetables last night? Or the way she gently rubbed his back when he could barely sit still in the moments leading up to your category?” Mary Fran gently tugged me back toward the pair of stools but stopped short of pushing me onto mine. “She calmed him with her voice, with her touch. And it was…sweet.”

  I tried to keep my bottom lip from hitting the floor, but the only reason it didn’t was because, well, lips can’t hit floors unless one is sprawled out on the ground—which I wasn’t.

  Yet.

  “You do realize you just called Ms. Rapple sweet, yes?”

  Mary Fran shifted from foot to foot. “I said her behavior toward your grandfather was sweet. She’s got a long way to go until I call her sweet.”

  I felt my shoulders relax ever so slightly at her answer. “I think it’s an act. I mean, we’re talking about Rapple, no?”

  “People have been known to change, Tobi.”

  “Name one.”

  “You.”

  I drew back so fast I nearly fell off the back of my stool. “How have I changed?”

  “For starters, you’re kicking butt with your company.”

  “That’s not me changing, Mary Fran. That’s just things working out. With a lot of hard work.”

  “There’s the fact that you allowed yourself to give Andy a shot despite all the hurt caused by what’s-his-name.”

  “Nick. And while we’re on the subject, might I remind you that you, too, talked a good game about never getting involved with another man again?”

  “Oh, I remember. Still pinch myself, on occasion. But I never said you’re the only one making changes.”

  I knew a slippery slope when I saw one.

  “So…” I cast about for yet another new topic of conversation, but, in the end, I took us back to the point of my first veer-off. “Did you happen to watch the news last night when you got home from the party?”

  Mary Fran looked as if she was about to protest my steer-job, but, in the end, she let it go and for that I was grateful. There would be time to figure out this Grandpa Stu/Ms. Rapple thing later. Or, with any luck, maybe I’d bide my time long enough, my grandfather would come to his senses, and all would be back to normal in my little world.

  “No, no news for me,” she finally said. “Once Sam and his award went to bed, I called Drew and then went straight to sleep. Why?”

  “They think what happened to Deidre last night was intentional.”

  “Oh. That. Yeah, I know. I read it in this morning’s paper.” Mary Fran swept her hand, and my attention, toward the paper folded neatly beside the shop’s register. “Though, honestly, the picture they ran of her makes it hard to imagine anyone having any sort of ax to grind with her, you know?”

  I leaned across the counter, grabbed hold of the paper, and peered down at the professional photograph of the mother of two. “If Grandpa Stu’s theory is correct, Deidre wasn’t the target. The winner—whoever it turned out to be—was.”

  “But who would do that?”

  “Someone who was angry they weren’t nominated?” I offered as convincingly as I could.

  “Like?”

  “Cassie Turner, for one.”

  “Cass—wait. Why does that name sound familiar?”

  I unfolded the paper and swept my gaze across the front page article and the rest of its accompanying photographs. “She won my category last year.”

  “Right, right, right… And she’s the one who handed Deidre her award this year, right?”

  I nodded without looking up.

  “Do you think there could be any truth to that theory?” Mary Fran asked.

  “I don’t know, maybe. I mean, Cassie is known for being a bit of a competitive diva, but that said, I’m pretty sure she’s friends with Ben Gibbens.”

  “Ben Gibbens?”

  “One of my fellow nominees.”

  “So…”

  “If she was targeting the category and he’d won, he’d be the one dead right now.” It was a thought that had come to me during the night, but this was the first time I’d voiced it aloud. Not that it mattered, really.

  “Could she have known who the winner was in advance?”

  “I don’t think so, but I can’t say for sure.” I allowed my gaze to travel to the bottom of the page and last year’s picture of Cassie standing on the platform at the top of the spiral stairs, her ad displayed on the screen behind her head. “I know it would be a tragedy no matter who this had happened to, but I can’t help but feel like it wasn’t supposed to be Deidre at all.”

  When Mary Fran said nothing, I looked up to find her staring at me. “What are you saying?”

  “It wasn’t Deidre’s ad that was starting to play when she fell. It was Lexa’s.”

  “M-maybe the tech guys made a mistake and ran the wrong one.”

  “Maybe. In fact, that’s what Andy thinks, too. But it’s also possible that—” I stopped, took in Cassie’s high-wattage smile, and shivered.

  “Possible that, what?” Mary Fran prodded.

  I lifted my gaze back to my friend and went for broke. “Maybe Cassie deliberately read the wrong name.”

  ~Chapter Six~

  I’m not much of a cook. Never have been. If a meal didn’t come from a box (hello, Cocoa Puffs), my freezer, or one of about a half dozen eateries that offered delivery, I didn’t eat. Unless, of course, my grandfather was in town and it happened to be a Sunday.

  Which he was and it was.

  Sunday night dinner was a tradition that began long before I was born. It was my grandmother’s way of keeping tabs on everyone. The fact that my grandmother had also been an amazing cook pretty much guaranteed the success of her plan. By the time I came along, the weekly gathering had grown to include games, an occasional theme, and close friends interspersed around the table alongside blood relations.

  So while I’d be lying if I didn’t admit a certain sadness at not seeing my parents (they had tickets to a show), my siblings (transplanted to other parts of the country), and my late grandmother (currently cringing at my lack of prowess in the kitchen, no doubt) assembled around the folding banquet table Carter had managed to secure from the theater, I was also pretty stoked about having all of my friends in one place for the second time in as many days. The only thing that could make it any better (other than the ability to raise my grandmother from the dead), would be
the subtraction of one person and one oversized rat that doubled as said person’s dog.

  “So what are you subjecting us to this time, Sunshine?” Carter asked from his spot next to my chair.

  I rolled my eyes at the laughter that spread around the table and plunked the first of a half-dozen or so platters down in front of my own personal doubting Thomas. “I’ll have you know, my grandmother made this very same roast when I was a kid and it was always a hit, isn’t that right, Grandpa?”

  My grandfather leaned in close, sniffed, and then looked up at me, his I-love-you-no-matter-what face letting me know I’d missed an ingredient (or five). “I’m sure it will be delicious, Sugar Lump.”

  “If not, I saw an unopened box of Cocoa Puffs in the pantry a little while ago and—” At my answering sputter, Sam laughed and then amended his suggestion. “Okay, so there’s an opened box of Cocoa Puffs we can pass around if necessary.”

  “Ha. Ha. Everyone’s a comic.” I returned to the kitchen, grabbed the bowl of mashed potatoes and the bowl of stuffing, and carried them back to the table and the empty spots on either side of the roast.

  Curling her upper lip, Ms. Rapple lifted her fork from the table and poked at the contents of each bowl. But just as she was obviously revving up for one of her cutting remarks, she glanced at my grandfather seated to her left and…smiled.

  This time when I rolled my eyes, it was mirrored by both Mary Fran (who sees everything) and Carter. But that wasn’t enough for me. Oh no…

  “Is there a problem, Ms. Rapple?” I challenged, earning myself a flash of surprise from my clearly smitten (and therefore blind to the reality of McPhearson Road’s resident nut job) grandfather.

  “Of course not, Tobi. Everything looks”—Ms. Rapple stopped, cleared her throat, shifted in her seat, and smiled at my grandfather—“delicious.”

  I reared back to challenge the sincerity in her words, but let it go as Andy rose from the table and ushered me into the kitchen with an offer to help shuttle in the rest of my attempts at cooking. Still, the second my feet hit the chipped linoleum denoting the start of my rental unit’s kitchen, I balled my hands into fists and released a frustrated groan.