Nothing but Trouble

by Susan May Warren

  This was all about Boone.

  He already had Jack tried and convicted, although PJ wasn’t sure why. But last night as she stared at her ceiling in the darkness, she’d known she couldn’t leave Jack’s fate to Boone.

  “I loved you. And I thought you loved me back.”

  Yeah, sure he did. PJ had rolled over to her side and dug one fist into her pillow, cupping the other over the small tattoo on her shoulder.

  It didn’t matter anymore, anyway. She hadn’t returned for him.

  She did believe one of his declarations—namely if he caught her messing in his investigation, he’d probably make trouble. Like four-cell-walls trouble.

  She’d watched the stars fade into the pale morning.

  Now, tugging at the wig, she scanned for Director Buckam, then walked down the path around the side of the building, past the shrubbery and the splashing children, to the pro shop located off the patio below.

  Her plan was simple: wrangle a tee time out of the pro, then drop back and join Ben’s foursome, maybe with some well-placed shots into the rough.

  The pro in the shop, a junior Matthew Fox look-alike, was checking out a group, handing them their scorecards, and getting mileage out of his high-wattage smile. She noted his name on his engraved tag—Ryan.

  PJ watched him. Yes, she could probably do this job in between her shifts at Sunsets. Maybe she should pick up an application.

  As the group filed out, on their way to the first tee, she sashayed up to the counter. “Can I get a tee time?”

  Ryan raised an eyebrow. Hey, where was his smile for her? Did she look broke?

  “Please?”

  “We’re pretty full today, Miss . . . ?”

  “Sukharov. Constance Sukharov.”

  So she didn’t look Russian. Connie wasn’t using her new last name at the moment, at least in Minnesota.

  He nodded, as if he’d heard the name, and paged through the book on the counter.

  PJ picked up a scorecard and a pencil, tucking it behind her ear. “Maybe I could just hook onto another group?”

  She heard said group enter, right behind her.

  “Hello, Mr. Murphy,” Ryan said, looking past her.

  Murphy. PJ stilled. Please, please let this work.

  Ben approached the desk, wearing a healthy retirement tan along with his crisp name-brand golf attire. Two other men followed him in. PJ flashed them all a small, flirty smile.

  Not a hint of recognition in Ben’s eyes. Maybe he was just used to seeing her disheveled, in silk. What did they say about the unexpected being half of a disguise?

  The group registered their tee time.

  “I’m so sorry to hear about Mr. Hoffman,” Ryan said, handing them pencils and scorecards.

  Perfect. They hadn’t filled Hoffman’s spot yet. “Excuse me, can I ask you fellas a question?” A little Southern could get a girl a long way. “Would you be willing to let me join you? I forgot to make a tee time.”

  Ben glanced at her, and PJ flashed him another award-winning smile, reminding herself that she was trying to save lives—four lives, to be exact—and a backside. Hers.

  “I think that would be fine.” Ben flicked a look at his cronies for confirmation.

  See, that wasn’t so hard.

  Except, well, the wig was starting to itch, and she looked like an uncoordinated duck as she swung with her father’s too-long clubs, sending her shot into the trees, the sandpit, the rough. By the fourth hole, she knew that Ben and his two cohorts were just looking for a place to dump her body after they gave it a good whack with a nine iron.

  Or perhaps that was just Ernie’s murder creeping up to haunt her. Still, at the ninth tee, she could hear tightly knotted frustration underneath Ben’s patient voice. “Don’t be so stiff. Keep your eye on the ball.” The other two stood to the side, shaking their heads.

  “I’m sorry; I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t apologize; just swing—ow!” Ben moved away as her club slipped from her hands and bounced off his shoulder.

  “Sorry!”

  Ben offered a sad smile. “That’s okay. You’ll get it.”

  She added another scratch to her card, then ran to keep up as Ben strode down the green. He was in amazingly good shape for a man over sixty. “Thank you for taking me. I’m sorry I’m so horrible.”

  Ben looked over his shoulder. He wasn’t a tall man, but fit, sporting only a small paunch, still graced with a full head of dark hair, now silver at the temples. He toted his golf bag on a cart. “No problem.” His smile didn’t touch his eyes, however. “Usually we have a fourth, but he’s not here today.”

  There it was, the opening she’d been looking for over the past eight miserable holes. “Is he ill?”

  So the question lacked sensitivity. It sounded innocent.

  “No.” Ben sighed, turned, and waited for PJ to catch up. “He was killed in his home last week.”

  Hearing him say it made it feel fresh and raw and awful, and she didn’t have to fake the horror on her face. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She pitched her voice low. “Do you know anyone who might have wanted to kill him?” Was that too obvious? She didn’t think it sounded too obvious, but now it seemed as if every living creature on the golf course stopped, listened, could see right through her disguise to the quivering, nosy outcast of the Kellogg Country Club.

  And of course, they were approaching the tenth hole, where Ben might very well figure out who she was when he saw her begin to sweat.

  “No. Ernie was a great guy. Loved to give advice and to help people.” Ben pulled out a wood, began to polish it. “We loved him.” But the way it came out, his voice tight—as if he didn’t believe his own words—brought PJ back to that moment when he’d chased down Ernie at the pool.

  “Were you close?” She took out her own wood, keeping her voice loose.

  Ben shrugged. “We taught at the same high school for thirty years. And golfed together most of that time.”

  She’d expected a different answer. Something to confirm that Ernie would have unloaded his deepest secrets to Ben.

  “I guess with Ernie gone, you won’t have to kill your goat, huh, Ben?” one of the other players said, obviously overhearing their conversation. She remembered him as Gary Kolowaski, math teacher, brand-new her junior year. He’d aged long and lanky, a pure Swede with blond hair and blue eyes. He wore knickers and a green sweater, a real old-time professional.

  PJ waited for a laugh at his words and even began to start it herself.

  They looked at her as if she’d just ridiculed a terminal health report.

  Perhaps this was some sort of weird old-man code for golfing or betting.

  But Ben nodded, leaning one arm on his cart. “He got the local health department sniffing around my house. You’d think I had predators living in my backyard instead of a few chickens, a pig, and a goat. A guy has the right to do what he wants on his own property.” He shook his head. “Putting down Billie is likely to kill Ruthie. I can’t do it. I asked Ernie to back off, but he just couldn’t leave well enough alone.”

  PJ stared at him, wading past his tone and his words to the truth. He wasn’t kidding . . . the man had a goat in his backyard. “What did your friend do?”

  Ben took a practice swing. “Billie got out a few times, ate his roses and a few other things—”

  “The goat ate his entire crop of tomatoes!” Gary said, now laughing, and Ben shot him a dark look.

  “Ernie got angry and wrote to the health department.” Ben set his feet, lined up the ball with his club. “Problem is, my wife bought that goat for the grandkids, and she loves it like a child. However, since her stroke, even she agrees we can’t keep it. But I have to find ‘a good home for it.’” He used his fingers to quote, elicited laughter, and even managed a wry smile. “Ernie was always overly protective of his tomatoes.” He swung, and the shot cut through the perfect blue sky, straight and true down the fairway.

  PJ watched it with a pang of gol
fer envy. But right behind it pulsed a question—how far would a man go to protect the heart of the woman he loved? PJ analyzed Ben’s hands as he packed away his club, then crossed his arms over his chest, watching Gary take his shot. Were those hands strong enough to break a man’s neck?

  What if a friendly chat turned dark? What if punches were thrown, a simmering anger ignited? What if frustration turned into manslaughter?

  PJ excused herself after the ninth hole, with fifteen over par. She should probably clue Boone into another possible suspect—Ben Murphy.

  Oh, that would be fun.

  Throwing her clubs into the backseat of her VW, she headed toward the snack stand. Sweat slicked the inside of the wig under the little nylon cap. Nothing would feel more welcome than a splash in the pool, but a lemonade would have to do.

  And frankly, she enjoyed the freedom of wandering the Kellogg Country Club grounds in different skin. Without eyes on her, weighing her choices, filling in the gaps of gossip.

  She ordered from the snack stand, then took her drink to the veranda, pulling up a chair in the shade.

  “Here’s to Ernie.”

  PJ’s ears perked up, and from the corner of her eye, she recognized the foursome who’d headed out before her. She bet none of them got fifteen over par.

  “Ernie knew his coins and his art. I’ll miss him for that.” This from a lean, well-dressed man who wore his thin hair in a comb-over. PJ watched through her sunglasses as he raised his glass of iced tea to the subject of his commentary.

  “You’ll miss him for his insider tips, Dennis,” commented another man, his large, fleshy back to PJ. She noted one reddened spot right in the back of his balding head. That was going to hurt in the middle of the night. “Ernie was a walking encyclopedia of historical knowledge. He should have been a professional numismatist.”

  Numismati . . . ? Where was a pen when she needed one? PJ slid her chair out, turning her face to the pool as if watching the first graders but tuning her ear to their conversation.

  “Did he ever sell all the Nero coins?”

  “I don’t know.” She recognized the thin man’s voice. “He said he had a lead. Ernie might have shared his insights, but he kept his investments close to his chest.”

  Investments? Denise had said he was flat broke.

  “I guess a guy just never knows who’s watching and when it’s over.”

  With that cryptic statement, the quartet rose and PJ let them escape without pouncing. But it would’ve been nice to find out what a numismama . . . whatever was. Or what sort of investment Ernie had.

  Or just why she couldn’t get the kink out of her swing.

  * * *

  PJ felt bulletproof. And tan. Even, maybe, a little thinner. Or that could have just been from taking off the wig. She hadn’t seriously held out hope that she’d pull it off, believing that she’d been hypnotized by the heady victory at the spa. It went right to her head, fertilizing all those spy-girl wannabe moments. But there she was, supersleuthing her way around Kellogg, digging up questions and gouging semi-size holes in the evidence against Jack.

  She dropped the wig and accessories at Trudi’s and picked up Davy, getting the sorry lowdown on Jack. He wasn’t moving from his cell, and according to Trudi, his defense lawyer had pimples.

  Once they were headed home, PJ turned on the radio and glanced at Davy in the rearview mirror. “What do you think, little man? Ready to have some fun this afternoon?”

  Davy looked at her and put his hands over his ears.

  PJ refused to be discouraged. Summer should be about Fudgsicles in the backyard, bare feet with grass slicking between toes, maybe a sprinkler to run through, or a saggy blow-up pool that contained grass clippings and various action figures.

  She sang along to the Beach Boys. “‘Little deuce coupe . . .’”

  Maybe God did have a reason for her here in Kellogg. Maybe she’d returned just in time.

  She pulled up to the house and freed Davy, who ran and banged open the front door, a sufficient announcement to their presence. Still, PJ stood on the stoop just a moment, in case Boris was doing some, uh . . . sunbathing.

  She heard nothing.

  “Boris? Vera?” So she hadn’t exactly kept tabs on them since Connie left—it wasn’t like she didn’t care. But since the vodka-soaked fish and slimy bacon incidents, she just . . . well, a girl could only turn down the offer of food so long before it became rude. And uncomfortable. And a giant faux pas in foreign policy.

  Mostly she just stayed out of their way and hoped they weren’t buying stuff on eBay.

  Or getting hauled into the local police station.

  But perhaps she’d been too rough on the Russians. It couldn’t be easy to lose a son to a woman across the ocean. And they had been shopping for a gift for Davy online. That was sweet.

  Last night, after her mother left, PJ had sat on the deck, breathing in the fragrance of the flower garden, listening to the crickets begin their nighttime serenade. Boris joined her and they’d sat in silent appreciation. He must have had a green thumb, because he actually got up and surveyed the bleeding heart bush for a long time.

  On page two of Connie’s instruction manual, she’d listed a subsection on her garden. Because Connie excelled at everything she put her brain to, she also had a flower garden featured in a Twin Cities magazine every year. Peonies, delphinium, lupine, phlox, columbine, lily of the valley, and a hedgerow of roses. In the back, safely away from the swing set, were two exotic Japanese crab apple trees that cost a small fortune and a vibrant bleeding heart bush, already in bloom with hanging pink buds. But her pride and joy were the gladiolas. Tall as oboes, with buds running down the shoots, tiny trumpets of red or yellow or pink, the color of new beginnings. Connie personally harvested the bulbs every year, and they would be in full bloom when she returned from her honeymoon.

  Thankfully the lawn company tended her garden as well as her lawn.

  “Davy, go get your bathing suit on. I’m going to show you a fun thing your mommy and I used to do in the summer.”

  PJ netted a glimmer of a smile from him as he pounded up the stairs. A few moments later, PJ followed and spied him sitting in his room, working his LEGOs. Clearly they had some focus issues. She could relate to that—lately her brain felt like a bad penny movie, jerky images flickering through her thoughts. Jack’s face when he tackled Hoffman at the pool. Denise’s glistening eyes while telling her about Ernie’s bankruptcy. Boone’s expression, dark with anger and something else as he touched her face. Ben’s smooth swing sending the ball in a perfect arch. Most of all, she saw herself standing at the country club, facing her mother as she said, “I’m so glad you’re home.”

  She could hear the code—“Please don’t mess up”—but she could also choose to hear something else. Sincerity. Gratefulness. “I need you.”

  Wouldn’t that be something?

  She went to her room and rooted through her mound of clothes for her swimsuit top, a pair of shorts, and a baseball hat.

  “Auntie PJ, I’m ready!”

  PJ poked her head out into the hall just in time to spot Davy wearing his swimsuit, his scuba mask, his fins, a life jacket, and a towel around his neck. “Yes, you are, pal.”

  They headed down the stairs, through the house, and to the kitchen. “I loved running through the sprinkler when I was a kid, daring myself to dive through the spray, squealing when the cold water hit me. You’re in for a treat.”

  When they walked into the screened-in porch, she heard a groaning, something moaning.

  “Boris, are you ok—?” She stopped, her mouth half-open as Davy broke into a wobbly run, threw open the door, and scampered out, his little fins flapping on the deck.

  “I love it!” His scream jolted her forward, and she stumbled out onto the deck as he hurled himself at the animal tethered to the fence.

  PJ reached for an iron chair to steady herself. She probably needed to put her head between her knees. “Is that a . . . ?”<
br />
  She couldn’t say it.

  Where the bleeding heart plant used to be—five feet of delicate grace tended with love by her bereaved sister—stood a goat. Long white beard, stubby horns, beady dark eyes. And littered around their new backyard inhabitant, PJ recognized the remains of the gladiolas.

  This couldn’t get worse, couldn’t get—“Boris! Vera!”

  “Mine, mine!”

  Davy’s voice yanked her back to aunthood. “No, Davy!”

  Davy already had the goat in an armlock. Before her eyes was a hazy vision of blood and screams, accusations, and finally her leaving, exhaust in the outline where her happy future had once been.

  “Davy, get away from it!” PJ began to peel his arms off the animal, averting her face from the rank, earthy odor.

  The screaming started.

  And finally out came the Russians. Vera stood on the porch yelling, but Boris leaped the hostas and raced out to the goat. “Nyet!”

  No what? No, don’t touch the goat, or—her preferred choice—maybe a disbelieving no, there was no goat?

  Please let this be a nightmare. Maybe she’d gotten hit in the head, and she lay, right now, on the ninth tee, bleeding, her wig askew while her tired threesome waited for Boone’s arrival.

  No, that would be worse.

  But as she stared at Boris and Davy, at Vera waving her hands, everything went eerily silent and she saw a movie scene—a horse’s head on a pillow, regards from Vito Corleone, only this note read Boris Sukharov.

  The goat began to buck, trying to get away. PJ landed in the dirt, pillowing Davy on her stomach. Screaming filled her ears, and she wasn’t sure it wasn’t coming from her.

  “Nilzya!” Boris grabbed the goat and growled at PJ like she’d just terrorized his newborn. She sat up, scooting back, away to safety, Davy pulled tight against her as Boris crouched next to the goat, speaking to it in low, soothing Russian, which sounded way too much like he was clearing his throat of a fur ball.

  “I want it! It’s mine! Mine!”

  “No, Davy.” PJ wrapped her arms around his flailing body, trapping him against herself as she found her feet. He’d reached uncharted decibel levels, and when she turned toward the house, PJ was suddenly a filament short of joining him.