Mayhem Takes a Dare: The Second Marisa Adair Mystery Adventure (Marisa Adair Mysteries Book 2)

by Jada Ryker

  Althea wondered if and when Clay would tell her about Moira’s outrageous claim of being married to him. She was torn. On the one hand, the great risk of eavesdropping was hearing only a fragmented part of the story. On the other hand, she did not want to be associated romantically with a legally married man. Althea sighed. Regardless, a disco dance was neither the time nor the place to discuss the matter. Resolutely, Althea tried to push her doubts from her mind.

  As a figure strode through the open door to the patio, Althea looked up. The set of the shoulders and the ambling gait were familiar. “Fred!”

  In the moonlight, Fred’s smile flashed. “Hello, Mrs. Flaxton!”

  Although a city bus driver by day, Fred also moonlighted driving vans and buses for the various senior organizations. Tonight, he’d brought a load of patients from the rehabilitation wing of the trauma hospital. As a former patient of the hospital, Althea knew the nursing staff referred to outings as POOP…Patients Out On Pass.

  “You looked great out on the dance floor a bit ago.” Althea smiled at the sweat on Fred’s forehead and his slight panting.

  “Mrs. Ryder’s a great partner. She’s out of her wheelchair now, and even with her walker, she’s the ‘dancin’ queen of the disco’ tonight.” As the beat of the next disco song reached them, Fred executed his version of finger points and hip swinging.

  “I’m surprised at the temerity of that young DJ, playing disco hits for a bunch of senior citizens. For most of us here tonight, disco was after our time.” Clay shared a smile with Althea.

  “And most of us thinking, thank God for that,” Fred laughed.

  “Could be the DJ’s passive-aggressive payback for getting stuck playing music on a Friday night for a bunch of oldsters,” mused Althea, sparing a fleeting thought to the sullen young man, his deft, expert hands manipulating his sound equipment in the huge dance hall.

  “I tried to talk Clara into coming tonight, but she’d already made plans with her daughters and grandchildren.”

  Since the incident several months ago which had resulted in the subsequent relocation of several residents from the Home Away From Home nursing home, Fred had visited the assisted living center several times. Althea believed the night Fred had loaded up a city bus of addiction support group members to ride to the rescue and save them all from a crazed killer was not on the highlight reel of Fred’s life, it was the highlight reel of his life. At the wistful note in his voice, Althea also guessed Fred was covertly courting Clara.

  “Fred? Fred Wilkins?” Mrs. Craft, crossing the patio on her stilted shoes, stopped so suddenly she nearly tipped over.

  Stringing their way across the patio, Moira Peters and her laughing entourage of elderly men bumped into Mrs. Craft.

  Mrs. Craft stumbled on her pencil-thin heels. Wildly waving her arms, she began to fall.

  “For God’s sake—” Moira tried to evade Mrs. Craft’s clutching hands.

  With the same reflexes that kept The Library deftly away from people’s feet, Fred leaped forward and caught Mrs. Craft.

  The moonlight was full on Fred’s face as Mrs. Craft looked up from his arms. “It is you!”

  Althea noticed that, at the note of fearful accusation in Mrs. Craft’s voice, Moira stopped and abruptly turned toward them.

  In slow motion, Fred put the elderly woman back on her feet. “Greta Craft. What are you doing here?”

  Mrs. Craft’s laugh was bitter. “Living life to the fullest, that’s what. Did you think I’d curl up and die after Barton was murdered? Or maybe that’s what you hoped.”

  “Murdered?” Fred’s normally affable voice was whip sharp. “That is so freakin’ funny it should be on one of those stand-up comedy shows. Murdered! Is a rabid dog murdered when it’s shot?”

  “Regardless of how he died, did you think my life would just continue on as before?”

  Fred’s face twisted in anger. “It couldn’t continue on as it did before! I wouldn’t let it!” He reached out to grab her. At the last moment, he seemed to realize they were not alone. His hands fell to his sides. Without a word, he turned abruptly on his heel and left.

  Moira cocked her head. “I sense a mystery, Mrs. Craft. Who is Barton and what happened to him?”

  Mrs. Craft seemed to shake herself free of her emotional stasis. She met Moira’s eyes squarely. “You and I are alike, Mrs. Peters. We’re both women who have done whatever it takes to get what we want.”

  At what she saw in Mrs. Craft’s eyes, Moira moved back a step.

  “Barton was a vicious, desperate man who put his fingers where they didn’t belong, and subsequently had them cut off. Don’t make the same mistake, Mrs. Peters. Not with me, and not with Clara.”

  * * * * *

  Back in her room, Althea wondered about the meaning of the scene she had witnessed. Given the raw comments she’d heard, there was a shared history between Fred and Mrs. Craft. And of course, given the pain and suffering, Moira Peters was right in the thick of it.

  Althea pushed away her thoughts, and uncovered her typewriter. She fed a sheet of paper into the machine, and turned the knob to position it with a one-inch top margin. She placed her fingers on the keys.

  Cross to Bear

  By Seretha Ranier

  Part Two

  Tina wiped her eyes. A mourner paused briefly next to her chair to pat her shoulder. She must think I'm crying for Martin, Tina thought. In her peripheral vision, Tina saw the whip-thin funeral director making his way through the clusters of mourners. He stopped to speak to each person. In his wake, he left shocked expressions. As the director leaned over an older man with a wild shock of brown and gray hair, his thin body curved over the shorter man reminded Tina of a weeping willow tree. “Of course! Harrison Forsythe the Third!”

  Following her gaze, Chris smiled, revealing a dimple. “Harry took over the family business when his father had a heart attack.”

  Tina frowned in concentration. “The man with him looks familiar.” Mentally, Tina removed the gray from the hair and wrinkles from the face. “Phil McInk, our old bus driver!”

  Across the room, Harry patted Phil on the shoulder of his school-issued uniform. Harry’s hands rose in consternation when Phil pulled away and strode toward the exit.

  Tina wondered about the interaction. “What did my father mean by the Roadside Cross Ninja, Chris?”

  Chris surreptitiously glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “You’ve seen those crosses grieving families erect at roadsides for victims of car crashes?”

  Tina shifted closer to hear him. “Of course I’ve seen them, both on back roads and interstates. They’re ubiquitous.”

  As the funeral director worked his way closer to Tina and Chris, she noticed her parents’ eyes avidly tracking his progress. When Tina saw her mother rub her blue-veined hands together in barely suppressed glee, her heart sank.

  “The Roadside Cross Ninja has made it his mission in life to remove those crosses in the dead of night.”

  Tina’s head snapped from her parents to Chris. “Why does he do that?” She thought for a moment. “They’re distracting, but if they make the family feel better—”

  Chris shook his head. “I’m with the Ninja on this one. Remember my baby sister Diane?”

  “Oh, Chris, I am so sorry. I didn’t hear about it until after the funeral. Diane and I were inseparable as girls. I think I spent more time at your house than I did at home.” She met his solemn brown eyes. “I always thought she looked like an angel with her curling blonde hair and her beautiful, clear blue eyes.”

  “I remember driving the tractor one time, with you two bouncing along behind me on the tobacco setter. You were chattering as much as getting the tobacco plants in the plowed rows.” He winked, causing the skin at the corner of his eye to crinkle. “I slowed down. That way, you and Diane could talk and work!”

  “What happened to Diane? The online news report just said she lost control of the car.”

  “My sister and I
were headed into the city. She was driving along the interstate and she saw one of those crosses at the side of the road. Diane was craning her neck, trying to read the inscription.” His face whitened. “I told her to get her eyes and attention on the road. It was too late. When she swerved off the shoulder and tried to get back on the road, she overcorrected. The car crashed. I had a few scratches. She didn’t make it.”

  “Chris! I am so sorry!”

  The funeral director sidled up to them and held out his hands to Tina. His long face was as white as alabaster above the solid black suit and tie. “My dear Martina! I am Harrison Forsythe the Third. We were in high school together, more years ago than I care to admit.” A subdued cough of laughter didn’t dislodge his solemn expression. “And I spent a few rebellious years as your brother’s friend. Along with Chris, of course.”

  Chris rose slowly from his seat. Harry slapped his shoulder.

  Tina noticed Chris inched away from the funeral director. Her body pulled unwillingly upright by courtesy, Tina briefly shook the funeral director’s freezing hand. “Mr. Forsythe.”

  “Harry, please!”

  Chris eased closer to Tina. “Hello, Harry.”

  “You remember our bus driver, Phil?” Harry craned his head. “Where did he get off to? Perhaps he’s grabbing coffee in the lounge. We were just talking about how he used to take the snaky turns on the back roads so fast, students would be thrown from one side of the bus to the other.” The funeral director hacked softly, like a cat with a fur ball stuck in its throat. “It didn’t help when he used to take swigs from his hip flask! Remember how we all tried to call dibs on the very back seat? When Phil hit the dips in the roads, it was just like a rollercoaster.”

  Oblivious to his audience’s silence, Harry turned to place a stiff, bony arm on Tina’s shoulder. “I was just telling Phil about the program we’ve established in Martin’s honor. You remember how much he loved to play pool with his buddies?” When neither Tina nor Chris responded, he continued, “Everyone is contributing money toward the funeral expenses based on billiards. The donations which correspond with the solid balls, numbered one through eight, are in denominations of one hundred through eight hundred dollars. For the striped balls, donations for numbers nine through fifteen range from nine hundred to fifteen hundred dollars.”

  Harry pulled a small, leather-bound notebook from inside his jacket. “Martina, shall I put you down for fifteen hundred dollars, since you’re the deceased sister with a high-powered city job?”

  Tina was appalled. “Mr. Forsythe—”

  The funeral director raised his voice. “And you, Chris, or should I say Dr. Hanson, you earned your doctorate degree in agriculture and snagged some juicy research grants. You’re the most prosperous farmer in the county, if not the state.” With an ingratiating smile, Harry produced an expensive fountain pen. “Or perhaps you’d like to ‘run the table,’ so to speak, and donate twelve thousand dollars?”

  “I think you are a better fundraiser than a pool player. You can only run the table if—” Tina shook her head and stiffened her spine. “Mr. Forsythe. After I left home, I put myself through college by working full-time at a gas station. I found a great job in Louisville, and I purchased a tiny house with a microscopic yard on the outskirts of the city. Every month, I sent several hundred dollars home to my parents. Even though I knew they would most likely spend the money on booze, it made me feel better to do this for them.”

  Harry opened his mouth to interrupt her low, furious tirade.

  Tina held up a shaking hand to stop him. “They used the money to make the payments on Martin’s fancy monster truck. I found out when he contacted me to tell me I needed to increase the monthly amount to cover his new tires and chrome rims.”

  Patting her shoulder in a professional manner, Harry pursed his thin lips. “Given the time you fell out of Martin’s truck and broke your arm—”

  “I didn’t fall. Don’t you remember? I was walking along the highway. Martin saw me and pulled his old truck over onto the shoulder. You and Chris were in the cab with him. He yelled for me to jump in the back so he could give me a ride home. Since my brother never did anything nice for anyone, I hesitated. You added your voice to his, Mr. Forsythe, so I reluctantly pulled myself up on the back of the truck. When I had my leg swung up to jump in the back, Martin laughed like a maniac and floored it. I hit the pavement. My arm was broken, and it still aches when it rains.” Tina shook off the funeral director’s arm. “Thank goodness, Chris made Martin stop. He was the only one to run back along that road to help me.”

  Chris took Tina’s hand. “Oh, no, here come your parents.”

  “They’re probably hoping to make a profit off this fundraising travesty!” Tina’s body shook as her father, his gray hair slicked down on his skull and his eyes glittering with malice, and her mother, her wrinkled face slack and passive above the flowered housedress, bore down on them.

  Tina’s chin shot up. “The white billiard ball just fell into my father’s pocket. Put me down for a scratch.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “My brother, Mosely, drank himself into the intensive care unit of the hospital a few weeks ago.” To keep her head from drooping in misery, Marisa stared at the framed licensed social worker certificate.

  “Oh, no, Marisa, what happened?” Macon Keller, her “talk therapist,” was in his habitual pose in his chair. His tall figure lounged back in the chair. His arms were open, his hands resting on his knees. The brown hair, although thinning on top, was free of gray. With his unlined, slightly round face, dark brown eyes, and fit body, Macon did not look his fifty-plus years.

  “Or I suppose I should say Lee, since he doesn’t like his birth name. He lives with our mother, allowing her to take care of him and pay his truck insurance. She also gives him the money she earns at the sewing factory for his drinking and his carousing. Our mom went to go visit her sister. She left my brother some money to buy groceries and pay the light and water bills. She came home to no electricity, no water, and Mosely lying unconscious in the intensive care unit of the hospital.”

  “Oh, no, Marisa.”

  “He had used the money she gave him to go on the binge to end all binges. He literally drank himself into a coma. I guess it’s a good thing he gave his on-the-side ‘girlfriend’”— Marisa formed quotation marks with her fingers— “a key our mother didn’t know he’d given her. If Sandra hadn’t found him, he could have died on the floor.”

  Macon cocked his head. “Why the air quotes?”

  To avoid Macon’s quizzical gaze, Marisa focused on the pictures of his wife and children, displayed on the wooden bookshelf between hardcover books on addiction. “Sandra is some ten years older than our mother. She has one leg and a prosthetic device. When Mosely introduced her to me, Sandra informed me she’d lost her leg due to intravenous drug use.”

  “I thought Mosely was dating a young woman from the battered women’s shelter? Fiona? She left her abusive husband and has I think two small children?”

  “Fern.” Marisa frowned. “How did you know? I don’t remember mentioning it before.”

  Macon grimaced. “I do volunteer work at the shelter, remember? I’ve seen you there before, when you were helping the women with their resumes and online job searches.”

  Marisa couldn’t believe she’d forgotten. “That’s right. Anyway, he carouses the bars with his young women, but always goes back to Sandra.”

  “Do you think she’s a mother figure for him, Marisa? Given her age?”

  “Always looking for the hidden psychological agendas, aren’t you, Macon?” Marisa’s laugh was devoid of humor. “No, her big attraction is she works in a liquor store. Mosely starts every day and ends every day with hard liquor. I suspect she steals it from the store and gives it to him.”

  One corner of Macon’s mouth moved. “A symbiotic relationship?”

  “Oh, yes, a win/win for them both.”

  “And Mosely went to the hospital?”<
br />
  “He was in the intensive care unit for a few days. Once he made it through the delirium tremors, commonly known as DTs, he was moved to a regular room. I took off work to help my mother sit with him in the hospital. He was so rude and mean to both my mother and me, even though I tried to reason with him.”

  “It’s difficult to reason with someone who doesn’t want to hear what you have to say, Marisa.”

  “Only a couple of days in the regular room passed before he was begging the doctor for more and more pain medication, claiming he was in extreme pain. He blamed his legs.”

  “Mosely was born club footed, I think you told me?”

  “Yes, after many surgeries and years of crutches and braces, the children’s charity hospital fixed his legs. He uses his medical history to get out of working, although he stands on his feet for hours in redneck bars.” Marisa’s eyes filled. “I am such an idiot. I really thought Mosely would use the opportunity to get sober. He’d already gone through the DTs and by the time he was discharged, he’d been without anything to drink for ten days.”

  “What happened when he was released?”

  Marisa turned away to gaze out the window. “On the way to my mother’s mobile home from the hospital, my brother asked me to stop at the liquor store. I said, ‘Hell, no.’ My mother ordered me to stop at the package store. She said if she didn’t buy it, he’d leave the house in his weakened state to get it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was the turning point for me, Macon. I decided I was done with all of them. I cried the entire way home. I made up my mind to stay away from them both, at least for the short term. I was too angry and disappointed and disillusioned to spend any more time with them.”

  “And you still make the rent payments for your mother’s mobile home?”

  Marisa sniffed. “Yes, it soothes my conscience to do so.”

  “Why should you feel guilty, Marisa?”

  She shrugged.

  “You’re the oldest child of an alcoholic father and an apathetic mother. You had to be the responsible one.”