Scareplane

by Elise Sax

  “You’ll be calling me,” the goat lady told me and left with the rest.

  “You cleared them out,” Grandma said to me, surprised at my gift for making people flee from me. “Thank you. It’s been a helluva day. I’m going to make some cocoa and take a bath.”

  That sounded wonderful. “Me, too,” I said.

  I brought my cup of cocoa with four jumbo-sized marshmallows in it, plus the rest of the bag of marshmallows, to my bathroom. I turned on the water in my claw-footed bathtub and unfortunately caught my reflection in the mirror.

  Orange wasn’t my color. It made my skin look orange and blotchy, and my eyes had a weird glow, like I was a psychotic killer who had come back from the dead. The jumpsuit was baggy and made me look twenty-five pounds heavier. My hair had an electric shock thing happening, and what was left of my makeup had smeared down my cheeks.

  I sighed and dug into the bag of jumbo marshmallows, sticking one into my mouth. I stepped out of the jumpsuit and brought the cocoa and bag of marshmallows with me as I stepped into the tub.

  There’s nothing better in the whole world that a deep bathtub filled with scalding hot water except for a deep bathtub filled with scalding hot water while drinking hot cocoa and eating jumbo-sized marshmallows.

  I had it all.

  Sure, now in addition to being the woman who had cursed a house, I was also the snake lady, and sure I had flashed all of Spencer’s top cops and ruined the conference that he had been working on for weeks, and sure I couldn’t compete with Detective Boobs and Legs on any level. But at least I was submerged in hot water and was eating jumbo-sized marshmallows. At least I had a lead on a match. At least my grandmother was ordering the pasta explosion buffet meal from Sal’s Italian Eatery for dinner.

  In the world of humiliations, I was a glass half-full kind of girl.

  Once the bath was full, I turned off the water. I downed the cocoa quickly and put the cup on the floor. I got through three more jumbo marshmallows before I fell fast asleep.

  I woke up when Spencer turned the water back on. “You’re going to catch pneumonia, Pinky,” he said, letting out the cold water and refilling it with hot. “That looks good, especially with you in it. What’s floating on top?”

  “Jumbo-sized marshmallows.”

  “Pinky, you never cease to amaze me. Jumbo-sized marshmallows? Damn if you’re not the sexiest woman alive.”

  His words said marshmallows, but his eyes were looking elsewhere in the bathtub. I watched him strip down and drop his clothes onto the tile floor. He turned off the water, stepped into the tub, and sat down, facing me.

  “I like how your boobs float in the water,” he said, ogling my breasts.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at your conference?”

  “Ugh. Why didn’t you stop me from hosting a conference, Pinky? What a bunch of turds. Since they wanted to alter the schedule, I included a free evening for them and got the hell out of there.”

  “I’m sorry Joyce Strauss did that to you,” I said, as Spencer took my foot and touched it to his how-do-you-do.

  “She wasn’t so bad, but that Mike Chantage is a piece of work. I don’t know what the story is there, but he’s putting everyone in a bad mood, including me. He told Terri that I was cutting corners.”

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up, but I didn’t know why. “What does that mean? Like stealing?”

  “Something like that. Not doing things by the book. And Pinky, besides all of your shenanigans with my cases, I’ve done everything by the book.”

  “Shenanigans?” I said, affronted. I pulled my foot back, but Spencer got hold of my arms and pulled me on top of him.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded and cupped my ass with his strong hands.

  “Wherever you’re going, I’m assuming,” I said and settled in for sex in the bathtub, which was even better than marshmallows in the bathtub.

  Spencer’s face was rough with stubble, but his lips were soft. He kissed me with a particular urgency, as if he was trying to prove something or trying to erase the rest of the world. I didn’t mind erasing the rest of the world because the here and now of the two of us naked, aroused, and touching was all that I needed.

  He lifted me up onto him until he was nestled inside me. I began to move against him, a familiar rhythm we had together, while his fingers touched me in just the right place.

  Our weeks together of desperate need, in which we attacked each other like it was all going to evaporate into thin air, had settled into a glorious habit of coming together, of communication on a whole different level between two people who wanted to be one. Making love is what the romance authors would call it, and they would be right. There was a scary intensity to it, but funnily enough, I wasn’t scared at all when I was in Spencer’s arms.

  No, the fear came later, when he was Spencer again, and I was Gladie and “we” returned to “he” and “I.”

  But in any case, my day had definitely taken a turn for the better.

  “This pasta explosion is just what the doctor ordered,” Spencer said, scooping rigatoni off his plate and shoveling it in his mouth.

  Grandma was wearing her housedress, Spencer was wearing a robe, and I was wearing Spencer’s sweats and t-shirt. The dinner had arrived right on time, but Spencer hadn’t stopped complaining about his conference’s participants.

  “That son of a bitch Mike Chantage. If I can find a way to lock him in the holding cell for the rest of the conference, I’m going to do it. Little bastard. And what’s with Frank Fellows? I’ve never seen a grown man pout as much as him. He just stares at Mike and pouts. Not as much as Leah. She’s a sweet thing, but it’s like her head spins around when she’s near Mike. Mike. Mike, Mike, Mike. I checked him out, again, just to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake with him, but his credentials are stellar, and his references pristine. Are there any more breadsticks?”

  I passed him the breadsticks.

  “Did you clock him?” my grandmother asked me.

  “Twenty-two minutes, according to the oven clock.”

  “Twenty-two minutes? What are you talking about?” Spencer asked.

  “You’ve been complaining for twenty-two minutes,” I explained.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “It seemed like longer, sweetie pie,” Grandma told Spencer.

  He blushed ever so slightly. “Well, these people are a pain in the ass. Zelda, if you were in my shoes, you would be complaining, too.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” she said, sweetly.

  “The best part of my day was the snakes,” he continued, and then shot me a look and winked. “Well, the second-best part of my day.”

  “How do I look?” Cynthia asked me. She was wearing a wrap-around dress and flats. Her hair was ironed straight.

  “You’re going to knock his socks off,” I told her, and I wasn’t lying. She looked tidy and put together enough for the fastidious Sidney Martin.

  “You’re sure about the cooking?”

  “Yep. And he’s got hair.”

  Luckily for me, Spencer was already fed up with his conference, so I figured he wouldn’t mind if I crashed it with a potential match.

  I drove Cynthia to the station in my Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. This time, I parked in back and snuck in so I wouldn’t have to see Detective Snooty Face. The conference room was darkened, and Frank Fellows was standing at the head of the room talking in front of a Power Point presentation. I pointed Cynthia to a seat next to Sidney, and I stood at the back of the room.

  “That was 2012,” Frank was saying. “The officer in question had lost his sense of smell in a boating accident but failed to inform the force. Two months later, he stopped a van and couldn’t tell that it was jam packed with a half-ton of marijuana. Since his olfactory system was impotent, he missed the bust. He was promptly fired, and then he turned around and sued.”

  “Sucks to be impotent, doesn’t it, Frank?” Mike called out and sniggered.


  Frank clenched his fists and took a step forward. “Don’t do it, Frank,” Leah said.

  “I don’t need you to defend me,” Mike told her.

  The tension in the group had escalated since the day before, and I didn’t blame Spencer one bit for complaining about it.

  Spencer thanked Frank for his talk. “Next up, Sidney Martin is going to tell us about the club that prison inmates had organized, with thousands of X-rated DVDs, alcohol, rubber gloves, and lubricants.”

  “That sounds fascinating,” Cynthia gushed at Sidney, laying it on thick. He looked at her, startled. “Why did they want rubber gloves and lubricants?” she asked.

  “Who the hell are you?” Spencer asked.

  “This is Cynthia,” I said. “She’s very interested in law enforcement. She’s a retired county clerk, and she has a pension and owns a split-level condo. She likes long walks at sunset, gourmet meals, and pets that don’t shed. She’s open to men of any religion or none at all. She likes to travel, but she also enjoys just staying home and watching television with a special someone. Totally single, Cynthia has never married, hoping to find that special someone who wants to share a life with her and enjoy the same interests.”

  I gulped air and smiled at Sidney. Cynthia was smiling at him, too. It had taken me fifteen minutes to memorize my Cynthia pitch, and it went off without a hitch. How could Sidney resist it?

  “Pinky, what the hell are you doing here?” Spencer demanded. “And what the hell are you talking about? Hoping to find that special someone? Are you working?”

  “Shut up,” I said.

  “I’m so confused,” Leah said.

  “I propose we have our lunch break before Sidney gives us the rundown on the prison club for masturbation,” Joyce said in her high, pinched voice. Once again, she was bossing everyone around, but this time, Spencer seemed relieved.

  “Good idea, Joyce,” he said, but he was looking right at me. Cynthia, meanwhile, only had eyes for Sidney.

  “I like your hairstyle,” she was telling him.

  “I have a standing appointment on Thursdays at Mel’s Hair and Care,” he told her.

  Spencer scowled at me and pointed toward the door. I met him out in the hallway. He crowded me until my back was against the wall and he put his hand on the wall above my head. “Pinky, what are you up to?”

  “You’re always telling me to be a matchmaker and not get involved with murders. So, here I am. I’m matching Cynthia with Sidney. They’re perfect for each other.”

  “You’re matching them at my conference?”

  “Yes, aren’t you proud of me? No dead people.”

  “But my conference.”

  “No dead people.”

  Spencer shut his eyes tight. “No dead people?”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  He opened his eyes. “Pinky, you were never a scout.”

  “No dead people. I promise.”

  Spencer had dreamy eyes, and he was targeting me with all of his dreaminess. “I guess if there’s no dead people, it’ll be okay. Oh, shit. What am I saying? You can’t do matchmaking during my conference. This is my job.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “So what are you saying? Your job is worth more than mine? Your business is more important than mine? Is that where we stand in this relationship? You’re the big, bad policeman so you’re more important than I am? I just do love, and love isn’t important? That’s rich coming from the man who says he loves me. Does that mean that I shouldn’t care about your loving me because love isn’t a big deal? Huh? Huh? You should be ashamed of yourself, Spencer Bolton. Deeply ashamed. I expected a lot from you, but never this. Not discarding our love like it was nothing. Throwing away our relationship when we’ve just begun. I’ve given you the best two months of my life! I’ve devoted myself to you. And now this? This? Whoa to the woman who loves man because her heart will be broken.”

  I was running out of steam and running out of words. My goal was to confuse him or wear him out or simply make him fear for the future of his orgasms. Whatever I was doing, it was working. He was scared, upset, and worn out all at once.

  “I didn’t mean any of that, Pinky,” he said in his seductive voice. “I meant…Okay, your match can stay. We’re having lunch now, anyway. But no deaths.”

  I crossed my heart. “Cross my heart. No deaths.”

  The conference room was once again turned into a dining area. The caterer was back with a waiter, and this time, he recognized me.

  “You’re the woman who called the paramedics, right?” Arthur Fox asked me, as he decorated the room with daffodils. The conference participants were milling about, talking to each other. Even Mike was talking to others and smiling.

  “I witnessed the crash, but emergency services came on their own,” I said, not wanting to take credit for saving him. “How are you enjoying the town?”

  “Love it. I couldn’t have asked for a nicer welcome, despite the circumstances.”

  It was odd to move into the town that you literally crashed into, but I did understand how Cannes could grow on a person.

  “I’m happy that you’re okay,” I said.

  “My leg hurts when it rains, but that’s about it. A miracle.”

  “A miracle,” I agreed, but I didn’t want that to get around. It was one thing having a town believe that I could curse it, but it was another thing altogether for them to believe that I could do miracles. I wouldn’t get a moment of rest.

  Arthur Fox and the waiter laid out the table settings with the food. Chicken, rice, and vegetables. There was extra food, and Arthur gave Cynthia and me each a plate. Cynthia looked around the table and down at the food, and the color drained from her face.

  “Excuse me,” she said and stood. She went quickly toward the door, knocking into Mike. “Excuse me,” she said again, this time to Mike, touching his shoulder and then left the room.

  I locked eyes with Sidney, and I tried to read what he could have done to make Cynthia fly out of the room on the double, but he seemed as nonplussed as I was. The rest of the room was eating intently. This time, there was no toast and no conversation. The conference was a lot like dinner with my mother when I was a teenager. It started with conflict and ended in quiet passive aggressiveness. Whatever was going on in the law enforcement conference, I hoped that my match could be salvaged.

  I folded my napkin and got up to find Cynthia and see how she was, but before I took a step, Mike Chantage coughed violently. Fear climbed up my spine, and I stopped in my tracks, my eyes riveted to Mike as he tried to catch his breath, as his body convulsed with deep, wracking coughs.

  A flash of certainty passed through me. I knew what I was watching, and I knew what was going to happen. An image of Mike lying in a coffin flashed in my mind, and it was more real than the scene in front of me. I tried to catch Spencer’s attention to let him know what was going to happen, but he was focused on Mike, and it looked like he had an inkling about what was about to happen, too.

  Mike grabbed at his throat in a blind panic. His eyes were wild, darting from side to side, as the reality of not being able to breathe hit him. It was impotence. The real kind. The life or death kind.

  “You did it,” he croaked with his last breath. “You killed me.”

  His stomach complained loudly, and he threw up, spraying vomit over the table. Then, as a punctuation mark announcing the end of Mike’s life, his eyes rolled up in his head, and he collapsed with a crash, face first on his plate of chicken.

  Even with a table of top cops, there wasn’t an immediate rise to action, probably because we were all in shock. Spencer was the first to act, flying from his seat to scoop Mike’s head up and lay him gently on his back on the floor, where Spencer began to do CPR.

  I could have told him it was no use, but I didn’t know how I knew it was no use. As Spencer did CPR, the others began to act. The paramedics were called, but nobody assisted Spencer with the CPR. Instead, they circled him, and watched as Spencer went to wo
rk. Ten minutes later, the paramedics took over, but it was no use.

  Mike Chantage was dead.

  CHAPTER 5

  A matchmaker is a yenta. Nosy is our business. How else could we do what we do? But a matchmaker isn’t a noodnik. In other words, we’re curious. We listen. But we don’t pester or bother. You get me, bubbeleh? As my good friend Roy Campanella told me once, it’s better to watch and wait and let things happen. Be there to catch, if it’s a strike or if it’s a ball. Fast ball, curve, slider. It doesn’t matter. Catch all of it, dolly. Don’t let it get past you.

  Lesson 25, Matchmaking advice from your

  Grandma Zelda

  “Sawasdee, Gladie. That means hello in Thai.”

  Lucy was Skyping me on my cellphone. She was smiling ear to ear, and she showed me her beautiful Thai outfit and the beach behind her. “I’m having the time of my life, darlin’,” she gushed. “Nobody’s happier than I am. This cruise is the best thing since Botox. Better, maybe. No, scratch that. Botox is pretty damned good. But it’s better than fillers. A smidge too much filler, and you look like Boris Karloff. Where are you? You look like you’re in a cave.”

  “I’m in interrogation room three,” I said.

  “Is that some kind of new kinky thing you’re doing with Spencer? Lord, you two just started, and you’ve already run out of the regular stuff and have moved onto the kinky stuff?”

  I shook my head. “No, we’re still doing a lot of the regular stuff. I’m in the interrogation room at the police station, about to be interrogated by Detective Fuck Face Pretty Girl.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I gave Lucy the rundown on Spencer’s new hire.

  “That little pisser,” she complained. “He had no right. There are lines you don’t cross, and he just up and crossed them. I’ll have Harry get someone to break his thumbs.”

  Harry was her new husband, and he had contacts who knew how to break thumbs.