The Chick and the Dead

by Casey Daniels

  Even when it meant sharing (a polite word for cheating) on the geometry exam.

  "What do you think?"

  The sound of Didi's voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I found her standing right beside me.

  "About Harmony?" I shook my head. It was one thing caving in to the demands of the wrong crowd when you had Daddy's influence and Daddy's money to cushion the fall. It was another when you had no one but yourself. "She's headed for trouble."

  "You think?" Didi stepped back and watched what was going on across the parking lot. Shayla and Harmony were talking, and I was poised and ready to jump in should the big girl decide to get physical again. Much to my surprise, the two girls came back across the parking lot together. Shayla's head was bent; she was saying something in Harmony's ear. They stopped at the door of the grocery store, and Shayla waited. Harmony walked in alone.

  I went right inside after her.

  I didn't want Harmony to know I was there, so I made sure I kept my distance. I trailed behind her, through the produce aisle, past the canned goods, all the way over to a section of the store that someone who'd never seen the inside of Saks had the nerve to label "Cosmetics."

  In their dreams, I told myself, and watched around the corner of a display of Puffs as Harmony looked over the ninety-six-cents-a-bottle shampoo and the two-ninety-five nail polish.

  She glanced toward the front of the store, and when another shopper came by, she reached for a bottle of conditioner and pretended she was reading the label. When that shopper disappeared, she went for the nail polish.

  I knew she would.

  It was the smallest thing there, and that meant it was the easiest to pocket.

  Didi was nowhere around. Too bad. I wouldn't have minded a little input on the right way to handle this sticky situation. It struck me that like Harmony, I had nobody to fall back on but myself, and I trusted my instincts and followed Harmony to the checkout.

  There were only two registers and one was closed, the lane blocked by a cart full of boxes of cheese crackers. The only way to the door was past a male clerk with a bad overbite and an eagle eye that looked Harmony up and down and stopped at the bulge in her jeans pocket.

  His thin lips twitched into a predatory smile. He made a move to come around the counter.

  I was faster.

  Before he could step away from the register, I'd already plunked a five-dollar bill on the sticky conveyor belt (I didn't want to think about sticky with what) in front of him.

  "Harmony," I said, startling the girl, who didn't know I was right behind her, "let me get that. Remember, I promised I'd pay for your next bottle of nail polish."

  Harmony's spine stiffened. She reached in her pocket, pulled out the nail polish and slapped it onto the counter.

  "I changed my mind," she said. "This stuff is shit. I don't want it."

  "But it's exactly the color you were looking for." I smiled and added the little lilt to my voice that guys always found so irresistible. It worked on the clerk (who was so busy staring at my chest, he hardly paid any attention to what Harmony and I were talking about). Lilt or no lilt, it didn't do a thing to cool the fire that shot from Harmony's eyes when she glanced over her shoulder at me.

  "I said I don't want it," she hissed.

  "And I said I'll be happy to pay for it for you."

  She walked away.

  I grabbed my five and followed.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  It was the question I should have asked, but Harmony beat me to it.

  "What do you mean, what am I doing?" I was filled with my share of righteous indignation, and when we got as far as the row of gumball machines lined against the wall near the front door, I stopped, my fists on my hips. "I'm trying to save you from a criminal record, that's what I'm doing. Did you think you were going to get away with that?"

  Harmony raised her chin and looked me in the eye. "I would have. And now…" She glanced outside. Shayla had been waiting by the door, watching. Her lip curled, she turned and left. All the other kids did, too.

  Seeing them walk away, Harmony's shoulders slumped. "She said I could hang out with them." she grumbled, "if I could prove I wanted to bad enough."

  It sounded so much like what Tiffany Blaine had said to me all those years before, it made my stomach bunch. "Shoplifting doesn't prove anything," I told Harmony, ignoring the fact that for me, cheating had proved to be my entree into the in crowd. "You're going to get in trouble."

  "Fuck off," Harmony said. She turned her back on me and walked away.

  I had no choice but to follow her out of the store, but I made sure I stayed far behind. When it came to counseling skills, I was a zero; there was no use belaboring the point. I plunked down on the bench outside the front door of the grocery store and watched Harmony head back toward home.

  "Too bad the kid doesn't have more to look forward to in her life."

  Didi was right beside me.

  "I was a fool to think I could make a difference," I admitted, and wondered if anyone who happened to glance my way thought I was talking to myself like the old guy I'd seen standing on the corner. "Nothing's going to change Harmony's life."

  Didi's sigh rippled the spring air. "She'll try anything to show that she's worthy of Shayla's friendship, and when nothing works, she's going to turn to someone else for approval. I'm thinking that one tall, skinny boy. The kid with the dark hair and the little mustache. She'll get in trouble before she's a junior in high school. Guaranteed."

  "You seem to know an awful lot about her."

  "I know there's something that could make a difference."

  I wasn't so sure, and I told Didi so. "Nothing's going to change her life."

  "Money might."

  I turned to my companion. "You're asking the wrong person about money."

  "Am not." She smoothed her skirt and tugged at her gloves. "See, I know something you don't know."

  I wasn't in the mood for games. I gave her a no-nonsense look.

  She gave up without a fight.

  "Harmony is my granddaughter," Didi said. "She's my daughter, Judy's, girl. Judy's dead now. Cancer. When Harmony was no more than five. The girl's father was a loser. That's why Harmony is in foster care. And she's headed down the same hopeless road as my daughter. No education. A mother too young. But you know, I could still make a difference in her life. You could make a difference in her life. If you prove I wrote So Far the Dawn, she'll collect the royalties. Then she'll never have to worry about money—or nosebleeds like Shayla—again."

  Chapter 6

  How big of a chump did Didi think I was?

  Apparently, a pretty big one.

  And apparently, she was right.

  My heartstrings thoroughly tugged, my scruples outraged on Harmony's behalf, I agreed to do what I could to see that justice was done.

  Too bad I didn't know where to begin.

  The next day, I sat at my desk and drummed my fingers against the papers that sat on top of it in precarious piles like windblown snowdrifts. I'd come into the office early, raided the cemetery archives, and even spent some time doing Internet research. I Googled both "Deborah Bowman" and "Didi Bowman" and turned up nothing useful. I checked the Garden View database, and though many of our residents' files contained notes about their families or their former occupations, Didi's said nothing about either. If my latest ghostly nuisance was a mother (and thus, could have had a granddaughter), no one bothered to make mention of it. If she had ever been associated with the writing of So Far the Dawn… well, I couldn't find any evidence of that, either. And believe me, there were pages (and pages) of Internet sites devoted to the movie, the book, and its author.

  Again, the little voice of doubt whispered in my ear.

  It sounded like my dad.

  I told it to shut up and glanced toward where Didi sat in the chair across from my desk. She was wearing the outfit she'd worn when I met her, and she adjusted the gauzy pink scarf that matched t
he bow around the neck of the appliquéd poodle on her skirt.

  "If you wrote the book, how come you never told anyone?" I asked her.

  "I did." She frowned. "I told plenty of people."

  "Then why didn't they come forward when your sister published it?"

  She shrugged.

  It wasn't much of an answer, and it didn't do much to bolster my confidence. I tried another avenue of questioning.

  "Why can't Harmony just talk to Merilee and ask for money?"

  "Merilee doesn't know Harmony exists."

  "I could tell her."

  "It wouldn't make a difference." Didi rose and walked to the other side of my office. When she spoke, she kept her back to me. "My family didn't disown me or anything, but they were very unhappy," she said. "You know, when I got into trouble. Oh, they let me live there in the Ohio City house, me and Judy. But things were never the same between us. They barely spoke to me. And poor little Judy, they treated her like she was dirty."

  It took me a moment to figure out that I'd heard Didi use the expression before. Getting into trouble was obviously mid-twentieth century code for pregnant. "Nobody cares about stuff like that anymore," I told Didi. "When Merilee connects with the only daughter of the only daughter of her only sister, I bet she'll get all warm and fuzzy. And when she finally kicks the bucket. Harmony will inherit a bundle."

  When Didi turned to me, she rolled her eyes. "Harmony won't inherit one red cent. Merilee's will leaves everything to the Grand Order of the Grand Daughters of the Grand Army of the Republic. No one can make her change it."

  I wasn't buying it. After all, I had been raised in the upper middle class. Growing up, I'd heard plenty of stories about money, and often they were based on someone being pissed at someone else who didn't leave the first someone a big enough piece of the pie. "Harmony could contest the will."

  "She could," Didi admitted. "If she was smart enough. Which she'll never be if she never goes to a good school. And if she can find a lawyer who will believe her when she tells him that she's not only the great-niece of a famous author, but the only surviving relative, too. Which she won't, because let's face it, Harmony doesn't exactly look like the type who has tens of millions of dollars coming to her."

  "Tens of millions?" I gulped down my surprise. "You mean we're talking that kind of money?"

  Didi pouted in an oh-poor-me sort of way that made me think she'd used this tactic before. "Don't worry," she said, tears suddenly watering down her voice. "You'll get some of that money. It's all you care about, anyway."

  I bet the bowed pink lips and the tearful blue eyes worked plenty good on suckers who were susceptible to that sort of thing. Just like I bet that in Didi's lifetime, she'd found plenty of suckers to use them on.

  Bad news for her, I was not one of them. Besides, she got me all wrong. I had to defend my reputation and my motives.

  I jumped to my feet. "That is so not true," I said. "It's not the money I'm thinking about. At least not in the way you think I'm thinking about it. Sure, I need money. And sure, I'd love to be paid for working on your case. But what I was thinking is that if there's a lot of money involved—"

  "There is." She nodded.

  "And if Merilee was underhanded enough to steal your manuscript—"

  Didi's top lip quivered. "She did. She waited until I was dead, then published it under her name."

  "Then if she's got that much at stake—"

  "She does."

  "Will you let me get a word in edgewise here?"

  Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to speak that edgewise word. No sooner had I screeched the question than I realized that my office door was open. Sometime while I was talking to Didi, Ella had walked in. By the time I realized it, I was already emphasizing my point by stabbing one finger into what must have looked to her like an empty corner of my office.

  I scrambled to come up with an explanation that sounded even half plausible.

  I shouldn't have wasted my brain cells.

  Because Ella didn't even notice.

  How could she when her eyes were glowing, her cheeks were crimson, and her breaths were coming so fast, I thought she'd stroke out right there on my office floor?

  "Ella?" Instinctively I moved forward, one hand out to catch her when she collapsed. Which I was pretty sure she was about to do.

  Only she didn't.

  Instead, Ella grabbed my outstretched hand with both of hers. "The limo just pulled in," she said, and she jumped up and down. Like a kid on Christmas morning. "Come on, Pepper. You want to be part of this historic event, don't you?"

  She didn't give me the opportunity to respond. Out in the hallway, the sounds of excited voices rose to fever pitch. Then they stopped cold. Silence descended. Both Ella and I knew what it meant.

  The door of the administration building had opened.

  Merilee Bowman had arrived.

  Ella gulped in a breath. She dragged me into the hallway and through the crowd. We ended up at the front of the reception line.

  I don't know what I expected. Mink, maybe. Or at least a Kate Spade bag and a pair of really kicky little shoes.

  Instead, the woman who stood inside the front door was dressed in a drab brown suit and a white oxford cloth shirt that was buttoned all the way up her scrawny neck. The shoes? Brown loafers. Enough said.

  Her hair was the same color as her suit and her shoes. It was shot through with gray and cut short, like a man's, and it was so thin, I could see her scalp. Except for a touch of color on her lips—mauve, which did nothing for her sallow complexion—she wasn't wearing a speck of makeup.

  Believe me, if I had tens of millions, I would have made a little more of a fashion statement.

  Like a deer in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler, the woman blinked at the crowd assembled in the office reception area. She sniffled and swallowed, and the scent of menthol was as thick around her as the paparazzi I could see outside the open door. They scrambled, not to get into the office but to jockey for a place closer to the limo parked right outside. It was as big as a boat and so shiny, the morning sun glinted off it like sparkling stars.

  I noticed that Dan Callahan—or at least the leather-and-jeans-clad photographer I'd seen the day before and thought was Dan—wasn't in the pack.

  "I'm Trish Kingston, Miss Bowman's secretary," the scrawny woman said, and I gave myself a mental slap. Of course! This woman was forty, maybe. Too young to be the famous author whose not-so-famous sister had died way back in the fifties when they were both adults. Trish scraped her palms over her brown skirt and extended one bony hand. She didn't so much shake Ella's as she clung to it for dear life. "Everything's ready, isn't it? Everything's perfect? Please tell me everything's just the way we discussed it on the phone."

  Ella's smile was beatific. "It sure is," she said, and Trish breathed a sigh of relief. A wave of menthol washed over me.

  Ella looked past the secretary and out the door toward the limo. "Is she happy to be here?"

  "Happy?" Trish repeated the word as if she wasn't quite sure what it meant. Her slender shoulders rose and fell inside the boxy brown jacket. She worked over the lozenge in her mouth as if the harder she sucked it, the better she'd be able to think. "I dunno. It's kind of hard to tell with Miss Bowman. But if you're ready…" She glanced around at the assembled crowd of Garden View employees before she looked over her shoulder to where the extra security guards the cemetery had hired for the occasion had set up a barrier and were busy keeping the eager reporters and photographers behind it.

  Ella raised her chin. She looped one arm through mine, and like it or not, I found myself front and center as we processed outside to greet our guest of honor.

  We arranged ourselves in a phalanx outside the door. As soon as I untangled myself from Ella, I scrambled over to the side next to Trish Kingston and let Ella and Jim take center stage. Didi, I noticed, was nowhere to be seen.

  Before I had a chance to think about it and what it meant, the limo
driver popped out of the car and walked over to the back door. He opened it and stood aside.

  Ella held her breath.

  Jim sucked in his gut.

  Trish mumbled something that sounded like, "Oh please, God, don't let anything go wrong."

  And Merilee Bowman stepped out of the car.

  Okay, all that stuff I said about fashion statements? I take it all back. Even with tens of millions, I couldn't have made a fashion statement like Merilee Bowman made a fashion statement.

  It was ostentatious, that's for certain, what with the robin's egg blue picture hat and the matching suit and alligator pumps.

  It was flashy, or at least the golf ball-size diamond she wore around her slender neck was.

  It was over-the-top. Just like the smile she aimed at the photographers all around us who clicked picture after picture.

  The effect was lost on no one. Except for Trish, still muttering a prayer—this time to St. Jude, who I knew from my father's mother (a great believer in divine intervention) was the patron of impossible causes—a reverent hush fell over the crowd. There was no doubt about it: We were in the presence of royalty.

  Big points for Ella, though. She may have looked as if she was about to swoon at Merilee's feet, but she kept her cool. She stepped forward and reached for Merilee's hand, and I guess I was right about the whole royalty thing, Ella bobbed a little curtsy.

  "Miss Bowman…" Her voice failed, smothered beneath the excitement that clogged her breathing. Ella had to start again. "Miss Bowman, I'm Ella Silverman. I'm community relations manager here at Garden View and president of ISFTDS. Welcome."

  Merilee's skin was porcelain. Her eyes were the same shade of baby blue as Didi's. From beneath her hat, I saw a sweep of silvery hair. She accepted Ella's homage and held on to her hand long enough to assure a good photo.

  "We are honored to have you here," Ella said.

  "Of course you are." Merilee smiled, and something told me that if she hadn't been busy making sure that the photographer who darted forward for a picture didn't get exactly the right shot, she would have patted Ella on the head.