Just Add Water (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 1))

by Schwartz, Jinx

  * * *

  “Fifty-nine will get your name on her stern,” the blue blazered salesmen told us, pinching a pleat to hitch up his white polyester pants. Inside his open shirt collar, curly black hair almost obscured at least five heavy gold chains. As I was opening my mouth to comment upon his fashionable ensemble, I received a preemptive jab in the ribs from Jan.

  “Fifty-nine hundred?” I said, moving my attention from his white patent leather boat shoes—no socks, of course—to the thirty-two foot sailboat in front of us. “That’s dooable.”

  The salesman lost a little of his toothy smile. “Good one,” he said, smoothing his gelled poof with a heavily ringed hand. He looked like a skinny Italian Elvis.

  Jan gave me a look, then turned to Captain Elvis. “You meant fifty-nine thousand, didn’t you?”

  The salesman’s head bobbed. His hair didn’t.

  “What?” I yelped. “You people been smoking funny cigarettes?”

  The smile faltered completely and, with the resignation of one who knows he’s wasting his time, he handed me a specifications sheet on the boat. “You’ll find it’s a bargain. Of course, that price doesn’t include any add-ons.”

  “Add-ons?”

  “Accessories.”

  “Like what?”

  “Sails.”

  * * *

  “Who in the hell would consider sails an accessory on a sailboat?” I groused four hours later as we sat in a waterfront dive munching on double cheeseburgers with avocado sauce. I sipped sugarless iced tea while looking through a stack of brochures, magazines, and other freebies given out at the boat show. “I cannot friggin’ believe it.”

  “Pricey little buggers, eh? And don’t forget, you have to put it somewhere. God knows what a parking place costs,” said Jan, the practical one.

  “Slip. You put it in a slip. According to these,” I waved a pile of flyers, “they can run over three hundred a month. And that’s cheap. In La you can double that. ‘Course in La you can double everything. They do lean toward excess, you know.”

  “Like you don’t? I hope this plethora of information puts an end to our little sailing adventure, Hetta?”

  “Certainly not. Look here,” I said, showing her a handout. “We can take sailing lessons.”

  “You can take sailing lessons. There’s no way in hell you’re getting me out there.”

  Dismissing her objections I countered, “You said that about skiing.”

  “I think you’d best pick a better example. I was in that leg cast for weeks.”

  “Oh, come on now. As long as you can swim, how could you possibly get hurt on a boat?”

  “You can’t.”

  “Get hurt?”

  “No, Hetta. Swim. You can’t swim.”

  “I can learn?”

  5

  Sunday night we recovered from our weekend of drinking, exorcizing, and boat hunting and got down to preparing for the workweek ahead. I hate Sunday nights.

  While Jan made a tuna salad, I checked for faxes and e-mail in my upstairs office. There were four hang-ups on my answering machine, so I made a note to myself to call the phone company the next day and order caller ID. I then joined Jan in the kitchen for our one and only allowed glass of Sunday night wine.

  RJ halfheartedly nosed the dry dog food plaguing his bowl, then gave me a dirty look. I was reminded of Sunday nights when I was a kid. After all the fun on the weekend, we had to get back to the dull routine preceding Blue Monday. And here I was, dooming us to repetition. Certainly no way to embark upon a major life change, especially if I wanted to do it before my change of life.

  I dumped out RJ’s dish, gave him two scoops of Ben and Jerry’s, poured myself an extra wine, and heated garlic bread to go with our salads. Take that, Sunday Night Blues!

  After dinner, Jan and I exfoliated, masked, waxed, and steamed. All those things “they” tell us lead to younger looking skin. Yeah, as soon as it grows back.

  Jan touched up her acrylic tipped nails while I sorted my wardrobe for the week. Selecting a blue pinstriped suit from my “meeting and work” closet, I added a cream blouse, pinned my grandmother’s cameo to the high Victorian collar, and laid the entire ensemble out on my ashes of roses duvet cover for inspection. A rummage through an antique tansu chest produced taupe hose. Navy and ecru spectator pumps completed the getup. After a quick inspection for dog slobber and wine stains, I pronounced the outfit, “Wednesday.”

  Jan gave an approving nod. “Very nice. Chick, even. But is it suitable subcontractor, butt-kicking attire, Miz Hetta? Looks more like IBMer duds. Well, except for that slit up the side of the skirt.”

  “I keep it buttoned, except for emergencies.”

  “What kind of emergency, pray tell? Them buttons go mighty high on the thigh.”

  “This week’s emergency might entail distracting the client’s in-house buffoon who thinks he’s God’s gift to the computer world. Lucky for me, the house nerd also thinks he’s God’s gift to women. A button or two might divert the little pervert’s attention while I convince his boss of what they really need in their new system. If I can’t persuade the big dogs to pay for good tech support up front instead of relying on their house jerk, they’ll pay through the teeth later. So, I slip a couple of buttons, the nerd spends the day covering up a boner, and I save the client a fortune. That’s why they pay me the big bucks.”

  “Hetta, they have a name for women like you.”

  “Yep, they most certainly do. Chief Executive Officer.”

  “Gee, the great and glorious Gloria Steinem was right. You are becoming the man you once wanted to marry. Very scarily, I might add.”

  “I prefer to be compared to Hunter S. Thompson, thank you. I like being scary. Inspiring fear and loathing has its place in business.” I surveyed my outfit once more and hung it up. “Now, what have I forgotten?”

  “Other than woman’s humanity to man? Your D-O-G.” She cocked her head at RJ and handed me the phone.

  I hit the speed dial and heard, “Noah’s Bark.”

  “This is Philinda Blank of the Oakland Chapter of the You’d Better Be Kind to Animals or We’ll Shoot You Organization. We’ve had a complaint, doctor, that you have been dallying with some strange pussy.”

  “How you doin’, Hetta.”

  “Begging, Craig. I need a favor. I gotta go to Seattle and I’d like to park RJ with you. He needs some clipping and dipping, and he’s favoring that leg he stuck under a speeding truck a while back.”

  “No problem. I’ll pick him up. What day and when’s your plane?”

  “Oh-dark-thirty Wednesday. I’ll leave him here at the house. Use your key. I’ll retrieve him from that dog prison of yours Thursday night, okay?”

  “No need. I’ll drop him off at your house and say howdy. And RJ won’t suffer dog prison because I’ll take him home with me. He loves my house.”

  And no wonder, the place smelled and looked like an animal lair. I vowed to schedule my semi-annual den cleaning assault on Craigosaurus’s cave soon. Dr. Craig Washington, RJ’s huge, but gentle, giant of a vet, was a hundred pounds overweight, black, shy, and one of my best friends. I never called him Craigosaurus to his face, although everyone else did. I know about weight jokes.

  “You are a prince among vets, Craig darlin’. Thanks.” We went on to chat about his week, his love life, and his latest veterinary venture. He was all excited about a new thing he’d picked up at a conference in Las Vegas: dog balls. And not the ones you throw for Fido. Seems some folks down Argentina way are so hung up, so to speak, on appearances they have silicon testicles implanted in their neutered pets. I vetoed Craig’s offer to make RJ Oakland’s first cosmetically enhanced canine, then said good-bye.

  “RJ’s all set. I should marry Craig,” I sighed.

  “What would his boyfriend say?”

  “Minor detail. Think what I’d save in vet bills.” I told her about Craig’s new venture into pet plastic surgery.

  “You’re shit
tin’ me. Well, gee, maybe Craigosaurus can do something for the poor dude in Seattle. Sounds like you ain’t gonna leave him with any.”

  “Really cute, Miz Jan. Well, yawn, I’m gonna hit the hay as soon as I pack my gym gear.”

  “You know, if you’d lay off all the junk food on weekends you wouldn’t have to work out for two hours and then go to bed hungry Monday through Thursday.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  * * *

  Dale Stevens was my VOD. Victim of the Day. He pulled his chair close to mine and aimed his color-enhanced contacts at my front. What he found fascinating about my grandmother’s cameo, I have no idea.

  Under the table, I slipped open five buttons up the side of my skirt, shifted slightly to face him, crossed my legs, and was rewarded with a sharp intake of jerk breath. He couldn’t take his eyes off my exposed, albeit pantyhose clad, expanse of thigh. Some things are way too easy.

  “So,” I said, giving each person at the conference table my most sincere look, “let’s get started by going around the table, each of you defining your job description as it applies to our project. As a guideline, I’ve prepared a sample organizational chart.” I held up a magenta bordered piece of paper, giving everyone time to shuffle through their folders and find their own color coded sheet.

  “You will, of course, create your own chart, but I’ve found that the better each department understands its relationship to others, and to the project, the more efficiently they interface.”

  The in-house imbecile forced his eyes from my leg slit long enough to check out my proposed org chart. His position on the chart and suggested title, Systems Manager, seemed to please him, especially since I had purposely elevated him to a direct-line of command right below the Project Manager. The yahoo gave me a wink and a ‘so you do think I’m hot shit’ look. He didn’t notice his little box of glory had no lineage to the rest of the project. Anyone with a modicum of sense wouldn’t like seeing himself dangling off the pyramid of command, so to speak. I winked back.

  “Let’s start with you, Mr. Ritchie,” I said, making eye contact with the head dude. “As Project Manager, you have overall control. Of course, with that responsibility you will be the first to take it in the shorts when things go south.” Ritchie looked a little surprised, then laughed with the rest of us.

  “Gee, Hetta” he said, “don’t feel you have to beat around the bush.”

  “Not to worry. You guys hired me to try to avoid cost overruns—that’s French for pissing off the client by spending too much of his money—and by golly, that’s what I’m here to do. By doing so, Mr. Ritchie, I am also trying to keep you from ending up a sacrificial goat to the client’s displeasure.”

  Ritchie nodded. He’d been around long enough to know that project managers, like professional coaches, have a potentially short shelf life.

  I then encouraged each member of the team to describe how they fit into the picture and what, specifically, their particular talent brought to the project. I left Dale for last. When it was his turn, the smug bastard spouted credentials, as I knew he would, but little substance. An ally on my client’s staff asked key questions, supplied, of course, by moi before the meeting. By the time my mark quit blathering, he had bragged himself right off the project. God, I love the smell of burned jerky in the morning.

  6

  The next afternoon, still harboring a satisfactory glow akin to post-coital smolder—as near as I remembered, that is—I drove into the hills from the Oakland Airport. A huge leopard-spotted van with paw, claw, and Tyrannosaurus rex footprints painted all over it was parked in my driveway. When I hit the garage door opener, the ever so large and gay veterinarian opened his slider.

  I wasn’t quite out of the car when sixty-five pounds of happy Lab knocked me back into the front seat. I nuzzled my dog and asked, “You two have a good time? And a bath? Oh RJ, you smell so good.”

  “Smell his breath,” Craig prompted.

  “I’d rather have a root canal.”

  “Come on, Hetta, just do it.”

  I held RJ’s big red head still and took a cautious sniff. “Have you two been into the York mints again?”

  “Nope. Something I invented, peppermint dog biscuits. What do you think?”

  “I’ll take ten cases. Now can you do something about his farts?”

  “I’m only human,” Craig joked, but his tone fell a little flat. I wondered if he and his sig-other, Raoul, had suffered a tiff. Guy problems. Something I can certainly relate to.

  “Want something to drink? You can give me an RJ report along with your inflated bill.”

  Craig nodded, but didn’t smile at my jibe. We went to the kitchen where he accepted a glass of Chardonnay, the second alcoholic beverage I’d seen him take in ten years. The last one was when his father died. Something was definitely amiss.

  “Well?” I said, as we settled onto the couch. Craig’s uncharacteristically solemn behavior put an edge to my voice.

  He sighed. “There’s a problem.”

  “With you and Raoul?”

  “No, with RJ.”

  “Well heck, Craig, I didn’t even know you two were dating.”

  Craig finally smiled, but didn’t laugh. Not a good sign. Neither was the deep sigh. Nor his large gulp of wine. “I’m almost certain RJ’s got bone cancer.”

  My heart threatened arrest. The mouth of the South, the gal with the glib comebacks, the queen of repartee, could only manage, “No.”

  “I’m sorry, Hetta, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure. We’ll get a second opinion, though. I hope it proves me wrong.”

  I chugged my wine. Got another. Craig waited. I morphed into All Business Bitch.

  “Where do we get the second opinion? And if you’re right, what are our options?” I caught myself before asking for the bottom line.

  Craig sighed again. “For the other medical input we go to the University of California at Davis. My alma mater. If they agree with my diagnosis, we have to make a decision. We can amputate his leg and try radiation treatments, or we could let the disease run its course and keep him comfortable.”

  “Not acceptable.” And if you sigh again, you leviathan, I’ll cut your heart out with this wine glass.

  “Hetta, we aren’t in a board meeting here,” Craig said gently as he took me in his arms.

  I dissolved into tears, and Craig held me until RJ, not liking the looks of a dogless huddle, poked his nose between us. I kissed his hairy face—RJ’s, not Craig’s—and blubbered, “Amputate? Radiation? That’s it?”

  “Maybe not. That’s why I’d like to take him up to U.C. Davis. Maybe they can offer some better ideas.”

  “Jesus, it wouldn’t be hard. When do we leave?”

  “Tomorrow morning. I’ve already set up an appointment for ten.”

  * * *

  During the somber ride back to Oakland late Friday night, even RJ seemed to sense the doom and gloom pervading his humans. He’d had a trying day of strangers taking blood, x-rays, and being generally intrusive. The jury was in, the verdict read, and a death sentence passed. RJ had maybe nine months on death row if I agreed to amputation of the leg. Less than six if we did nothing.

  An hour into the drive, I reached a decision. “I can’t see subjecting him to surgery unless it’ll save his life.”

  “I think that’s a wise decision,” Craig said, keeping his eyes glued to the road.

  “You mean I finally, for once in my entire life, make a wise personal decision and it dooms my dog to a painful death?”

  “Hetta, this isn’t your fault. It’s not all that unusual for a dog to develop cancer in a bone break, especially one as severe as his was. Most people would have put him down right after that truck hit him, but you spent a fortune on orthopedic surgery.”

  For years I’d referred to RJ as the three thousand dollar dog, my bionic bow-wow. Now it wasn’t the least bit funny.

  “Craig, I want my money back.”

  * * *

&
nbsp; Jan, whom we’d called en route, waited in my-oh-so chic, oval living room. A fire roared in the turn of the century, hand sculpted, granite fireplace. The lights of several Bay Area cities glittered through plant framed casement windows. Years of renovation, poring over House Beautiful and Architectural Digest, and hounding salvage yards and estate sales had paid off. Chez RJ was as pleasant to the eye as it was to live in.