Make, Take, Murder

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  I laughed. We sneaked back to the stockroom where she could examine my crocheting. “You’re coming along. Remember to trust the yarn and the hook. Your work is a bit too tight, and that comes from worrying your piece will slide off.”

  I nodded. Clancy hit the proverbial nail on the head. My hands ached from clenching the yarn tightly. I worried my projects would slip from the hook and unravel at any juncture. “At this rate I’ll never finish the scarves I plan to give as gifts.”

  She grinned. “I can help with that, too. Now show me where you found that piece of shin. I’m curious.”

  Our other Monday night croppers showed up one by one, moving past the last of the media. Once inside they dispensed hugs and holiday greetings. Of course they wanted to know what happened to draw the attention of the news trucks, but Bama quickly brushed the questions aside with, “It’s no big deal. Just something Kiki found in our garbage. We’re confident it’s a prank.”

  Most of the women were our regulars; we’d been through a lot together. While my gross discovery caused a few nervous glances, they were more interested in their crafting projects than someone’s failed anatomy lesson.

  Miriam Glickstein brought a Hanukkah page she started and hoped to finish, Maggie Earhardt (her daughter Tilly attended school with Anya) carried a box of Christmas cards she was working on, Rita Romano baked a fabulous batch of cornbread with chiles to share with us, and Jennifer Moore (her daughter Nicci was Anya’s best friend) brought a small album chronicling the history of her family business. Lanetta Holloway showed up in her signature purple, including the coolest low boots I’ve ever seen. She was putting together an album of her favorite new sci-fi/fantasy books. Bonnie Gossage showed up looking the same color I did after I pulled up that severed limb. As the women settled into their spots, Rita placed the cornbread on the side table we reserved for food. (Keeping it separate from the crafts was a priority. Nothing like a spill to ruin weeks of work. Even dry items like breads and cookies can leave oil stains on paper.)

  Five other newcomers rounded out the group, including the young mother of twins I had stayed to help the night before. “My name’s Daisy Touchette,” she said shyly. “You were so nice to me that I had to come back. Told my husband that having a hobby was way cheaper than divorce court.” With that she gave a nervous giggle.

  The minute the foil wrapper came off the cornbread and its lovely aroma filled the air, Bonnie hopped up and ran to the back room. She returned with a slight sheen on her skin, and one hand pressed to her lips. It didn’t take med school to figure out she’d been sick.

  “Hope you don’t mind. My tummy’s upset so I helped myself to a Sprite from the refrigerator,” she said.

  “Of course not.” Bonnie once helped spring me from the county jail. As far as I was concerned, she could drink Lake Superior dry of colas, and I’d gladly foot the bill.

  Bama frowned at the attorney from behind our customer’s back. Boy, oh, boy. Miss Pinch-a-Penny was the life of the party. I hissed to my partner, “I’ll pay for it,” and Bama recovered enough to welcome our croppers. She passed out goody bags with a sheet detailing our holiday store hours, a cute little die cut of stacked presents, and a coupon for special discounts. I hadn’t seen the final schedule until Bonnie withdrew hers from the bag. When I did, I bit my lip to keep from moaning. I love the store, but staying open until 9 p.m. and occasionally 11 was going to make holiday shopping impossible for me. As for celebrating Hanukkah, forget-about-it. Eight days of festivities were always hard to pull off, but more so when I only had one or two waking hours at home.

  Bama ended her portion of the event by reading a note from Dodie, Time in a Bottle’s founder and majority owner. Dodie explained her chemo and radiation treatments would end soon and she missed everyone terribly. A coda from her husband thanked all of us for our support and good wishes.

  “Tonight’s project is a holiday organizer. I think you’ll find it incredibly useful for staying on top of all your activities. Jane Dean, that fabulous United Kingdom scrapbook artist, showed a similar project a few years back.” I handed out the materials kit and a color copy of the ScrapBook inspirations article with Jane’s project in it. The resulting oooohs and ahhhs went a long way toward making me feel better. But then, crafting always makes me feel better. I know I’m not alone.

  Kiki Lowenstein’s Holiday Organizer

  Inspired by a similar project by Jane Dean,

  published by ScrapBook inspirations magazine.

  1. Buy a cheap 3-ring binder of light cardstock.

  2. Cover the front and back with holiday appropriate paper. If desired, cover the inside covers as well. You might wish to lightly sand the outside if it is glossy. (Tip: I like UHU Glue Stick for gluing paper to cardstock. You do need to get the glue all the way to the edges or the paper might peel up, but the glue stick won’t bubble like liquid glue does.)

  3. Create inside pages out of cardstock. Label these: Calendar, Gifts, Recipes, Events, Decorating. (Tip: Use a punch in the shape of a label tab and stagger the tabs so they are all readable.) Remember to leave a margin on one side so you can punch holes and not ruin your design.

  4. Decorate these inside pages. You can find calendars online for your calendar page. You might also want to create some inside pages with pockets. On other pages, add room for lists that you will make as you go through the holidays.

  5. Between the decorated pages, add empty plastic page protectors for notes.

  6. Assemble your organizer.

  The crafters decided to create a “get well” card for Dodie. As a result, we closed a half an hour later than predicted. How could I stop them? Especially when the extra time went for such a good cause? I knew the card would perk up her spirits. Horace phoned during the crop and told Bama privately his wife might be back at the store next week. I hoped so, but I also hoped she would take time to recover from her treatments. The aftermath of chemo and radiation could be as brutal as the treatments themselves.

  My house was dark and deserted when I arrived home. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten to turn on the porch light. I was hoping to save a little money by leaving it off during the day. Instead, I carried a flashlight in my purse. The sweep of the beam picked up a figure walking toward me, and I nearly wet my pants.

  “Kiki?”

  I recognized the voice of my landlord, Leighton Haversham.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you. Hoped I’d catch you. May I come in? Is your porch light not working?”

  “Um, I forgot to turn it on when I left.”

  Mr. Haversham smiled and held my door open for me, which was very helpful because I was loaded down. “I’ll have an automatic light sensitive timer put in. That way you won’t have to remember. Where’s Gracie?” He said as he took my bundles from my arms. I brought old magazines from the store with the hopes they’d inspire me for future projects. I also carried a sample project, the leftover Bread Co. food, paper to cut for upcoming projects, and small scraps of paper that needed sorting. This I fished out of the trash with the hopes I could use them on my own holiday cards that I hadn’t yet started.

  “Gracie’s staying overnight at the vet’s office. She’s got a bad case of ‘happy tail.’”

  “Happy tail?” He pulled out a kitchen chair and settled in. Leighton has that old world gentleman thing going. His salt-and-pepper hair was slicked back in a très European manner, and his slacks always draped as though made from very expensive material. I’m not sure if his loafers were Italian, but I imagined they were. There was this overall elegance about him that always caught me slightly off-guard. Especially when he also managed to look entirely comfortable in my kitchen.

  “Repetitive injuries after her tail got caught in a car door,” I explained with a wince. My best friend Mert’s son Roger had been fooling around. At twenty, Roger’s a big man-kid. He didn’t mean to slam the door on Gracie’s tail, and fortunately, he caught it mid-slam so the full impact wasn’t realized. But Mert just about killed
her son over it. “Fiddle-farting around and he knows better!” she hollered. The wound should have healed quickly. Gracie, like most dogs, is a totally forgiving creature; her response was to give a loud yelp and then to quickly love up Roger. He knelt at her side, tears forming in his big hazel eyes, his whole body trembling, as he repeated, “I’m sorry! Gracie, I’m so sorry!” When he offered to pay for the vet’s visit, I said, “No way!” but Mert insisted. “Serves him right. He gotta learn that actions have consequences.”

  When her tail didn’t heal after the first trip, I took her back to see Dr. Tailor. His demeanor told me more than his words. He rubbed his jaw and sighed. “We call it ‘happy tail.’ Happens a lot with your big breeds. Poor girl keeps re-injuring herself as she wags it.”

  He suggested that they keep Gracie overnight, which stretched to two nights. At the clinic they put my baby in a special crate lined with pads to minimize the impact of her wagging and gave her a shot of antibiotics.

  Leighton drummed his fingers on the table. “That’s too bad. I hope she recovers quickly. I heard about your Dumpster-diving episode. Imagine bringing up part of a corpse. That’s an assumption, of course. The other option is too terrible to consider.”

  He was right about that.

  He continued, “I stopped by because I need help. I’m leaving town on a mini-book tour. Do you have a few minutes? I could show you how to care for Monroe.”

  Petunia was his scaredy-cat pug and Monroe his pet donkey. In return for reduced rent, I bartered my services as pet sitter. “Of course.”

  A few snowflakes danced in my porch light as we stepped out my front door. The air actually felt warmer than it had at noon. Leighton called out to Monroe as we approached. A clatter of hooves on cold hard ground greeted us, his breath clouding the frigid air. In the center of Monroe’s pen was a sturdy shed over a concrete floor covered with sawdust and straw for bedding. The fencing attached to each side of the enclosure. A simple gate with a lift and drop latch completed the enclosure.

  “Monroe hates the color white,” Leighton explained while he scratched his pet under the neck. “He’s a rescue donkey. Spent his formative years at a petting zoo. Little kids loved to pull on his ears, and Monny has sensitive ears, don’t you, buddy? But donkeys are smart. Monroe figured out that if he head-butted kids in diapers, they’d stay away from him. As a consequence, my sure-footed friend thinks anything white is worthy of target practice.”

  I laughed. Monroe wore a bright blue blanket. Leighton explained that he had been “rugged up” as protection from the cold, and his garment was changed and laundered frequently. To my surprise, Monroe appeared every bit as affectionate and personable as a dog or a cat. He followed his owner around like a lovesick puppy. His big velvety lips tugged at Leighton’s barn jacket, as he leaned his forehead against Leighton’s arm.

  With a quick toss, Leighton lobbed an apple at me. “He can only have one of these a day. I saved this treat so you could give it to him.” Suddenly I was the center of Monroe’s world. I flattened my hand and offered up the fruit, which Monroe delicately removed. His soft lips tickled my palm, and I couldn’t help but crow with delight. “He’s so sweet!”

  “Unless you are wearing white,” said Leighton. “Then he’s a fur-covered bulldozer calculating how to mow you down. But I can’t blame him, can you? He was only trying to defend himself. A very noble response. Anthropologists say humans have two overwhelming drives: procreation, or adding to our species, and self-preservation, or maintaining our species. Surely Monroe has the right to self-defense. Why should we wish to deny him that?”

  I also learned that most donkeys don’t like dogs. “But Monny is very tolerant of them. Lucky for us dog lovers, eh?”

  Leighton showed me Monroe’s food and gave me instructions on how much to feed him. “Don’t let those brown eyes sucker you into extra food. It’s not good for him. Oh, and there’s a heater in his water supply, so it won’t freeze up.”

  The cares of the day evaporated as I learned how to care for my new friend. Leighton opened the back door to his home and called Petunia, his pug. The shy little boy-dog ran to me with his tail tucked between his legs, wriggling with joy. Tunie and I had been pals for ages, so I scooped up the cute smashed-nose pup and gave him a cuddle.

  “By the way, Kiki, you do know you can turn me down for pet sitting, right? I don’t expect you to be available every time I ask.”

  He’s such a nice man.

  I assured him that caring for Petunia and Monroe wouldn’t be a problem. In fact, with Gracie gone, I was eager to take Petunia home with me that very evening.

  I was sincere in my intent, but after I locked my front door and got the dog settled, I wondered how on earth I could manage to care for Leighton’s pets, help Mert with her dogsitting, meet my store obligations, and take care of holiday celebrations with my daughter. I opened the organizer I’d created as an example for our croppers. There just weren’t enough pages or open spaces in it to accommodate my overflowing schedule.

  So I closed it and went to bed. This had been one of the longest days of my life. I kicked off my shoes but didn’t bother to undress. I tossed and turned all night, imagining the feel of cold, yucky flesh against my skin.

  Tuesday, December 15

  I woke up with a head full of junk. My dressing routine was interrupted by several fits of coughing and sneezing. A couple of squirts of nasal spray helped me start breathing through my nose instead of my mouth.

  I hate colds. Hate ’em.

  My spirits brightened as I approached the pen. Monroe was thrilled to see me, and I quickly dispatched my responsibilities in the shed. Petunia wiggled around on the passenger’s seat. I cracked the windows for him while I raced into the vet’s office to pick up Gracie. Dr. Tailor instructed me to keep Gracie from any excitement. The less wagging, the better. I wondered how I could do that. By nature, Gracie wasn’t a barker. My big, beautiful Harlequin Great Dane didn’t make a peep for months after I acquired her at a pet adoption fair. But she was always a lover and a happy pup. Almost anything could set Gracie’s backside a moving like a metronome. I studied the bandage on her appendage and crossed my fingers mentally. Maybe if I positioned her in the backroom where she couldn’t see the comings and goings, she’d stay calm.

  Fat chance, said a voice in my head.

  I situated both dogs in the playpen. Heated water in the microwave for a cup of Earl Grey, brewed it, squished out the moisture and kept the bag tucked away in a ramekin for another cup or two. I started the opening procedures and heard the buzzer sound at the back door. With any luck, I’d open it to a delivery of more stock.

  I was all out of luck.

  Detective Chad Detweiler stood there.

  I gulped.

  I hadn’t seen him for nearly a month. My mouth went dry. My hot tea sloshed over onto my hand.

  “Ow!” I cried and dropped my mug. Behind me, my silent wonder-dog, Gracie, yodeled with joy. Detweiler is her favorite person in her world and mine. Heck, in my own way my tail was wagging, too.

  Without speaking, he took me by the arm over to our bathroom sink. There he pressed against me and held my hand in cold water. “It keeps burning after the liquid is gone. You need the cold to stop the progress.”

  The heat in my hand was quickly replaced by a warm tingling south of my belt buckle. I considered splashing a little water all down the front of me. I sure needed it.

  “That’s better,” Detweiler said as he stepped away. My wobbling legs nearly collapsed.

  But sanity and sheer grit rescued me. I straightened, caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and flinched. My nose rivaled Rudolf’s for redness.

  “I assume you’re here for a reason,” I managed, but that’s all I said before the buzzing of the back door minder interrupted us. Detective Hadcho wore a grim expression as he stood on the threshold. “I see Chad’s already here. Your business partner is just pulling in. We need to talk.”

  Bama came in and
we all took seats in the office. Hadcho and Detweiler explained that the police received a strange message the night before on their Tips Hotline. Detweiler withdrew a small recording device from his pocket and hit the “play” button.

  “My name is Cindy Gambrowski,” said a quivering voice. “I’m afraid for my life. If anything happens to me, talk to Kiki Lowenstein over at Time in a Bottle. She’ll have the answers.”

  “I have no idea what that person is talking about. When did you say you found this?” I cradled a new mug of tea. The old one with its broken handle had been relegated to the trash.

  “One of our technicians brought it to us this morning. They followed up last night with a call to the Gambrowski residence, but no one answered. Without anything to follow up on—” Hadcho opened his palms in a gesture of defeat.

  “Is Mrs. Gambrowski one of your customers?” Detweiler tapped his pen against his Steno pad, a habit of his I knew well. The pen moved at the rapid pace of his thoughts.

  “She is.”

  “What else can you tell us about her?”

  I floundered about, not so much because I was being coy as how do you describe someone without being cruel or petty? Cindy had a bit of the floozy about her. Too much makeup. Too-low tops. Too-tight pants. Always wore high heels. No doubt her wardrobe was all very expensive stuff, but it was also too tight and too showy. Her taste veered toward cheap, or at least to the obvious, and there it remained. Her husband Ross was the driving force behind several subdivisions including Rossman Acres, a trendy but tacky subdivision on the south side of St. Louis. I once went to a Tupperware party there with another customer. (I usually avoid home parties because you feel obligated to make a purchase. But in this case, I needed their cupcake server for the store, and Tupperware is the best.) The walls of that little two-storey house shook whenever big cars drove by. The carpet obviously had been glued directly to the floor. When a toilet flushed on the second floor, I thought we’d all been instantly transported to Niagara Falls.