Like I was ever a carouser. Well, okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly true. JT’s arrival in my life had brought about a number of positive changes that I hadn’t anticipated, and quiet evenings in were one of them. I said, “Can we get back to Krasski?”
“Sure.” Taffy stared expectantly at us.
Might as well ask flat out. “Did you put together some kind of album about what happened between Krasski and JT?”
Now her brow wrinkled again, the crease between her nose deepening. “I did, but how in the world do you know about that?”
“Dimples,” Eddy said.
“Ah.” Taffy nodded once. “JT’s grandpa.”
Someone in the depths of the office yelled, “Kathy, we need you for a minute.”
“Be right there,” she called back, and then faced us again. “How about you meet me at my house in”—she glanced at her watch, which was secured to her wrist with a two-inch-wide purple leather band—“an hour? I’m off about one, and that’ll give me time to get home and sort things out.”
She wrote her address on the back of one of the cryogenic doc’s business cards and handed it to me. I reached for it, but she yanked it from my grasp just as my fingers closed around it. “By the way, how did you find me here?”
I grinned. “I talked to someone at your house who told me you worked at a suppository. Then your hubby filled in the rest.”
Taffy rolled her eyes and handed the card over.
“Shay,” Eddy said after we once again settled ourselves in the truck. “I suppose I should get back and check on the old ladies. Drop me at home before you catch up with Taffy, will you?”
“No problem.” I shifted into Reverse and glanced at the two pooches as I backed out of the parking spot. Dawg was sprawled across the narrow bench seat and Bogey had somehow wedged himself on the floor between the front and back seats. “Maybe Coop’s done, and he can come. Especially if Ms. Taffy is a true-to-life hippie and is growing some Maui Wowie in her house.”
Eddy cut me a look. “Maui Wowie?”
“Pot, Eddy. Marijuana.”
Eddy raised her lip in distaste and refocused her eyes on the windshield. “You kids.”
It was an uneventful twenty-minute ride home. I pulled up to the curb half a block from the Hole, and we scrambled from the cramped confines of the pickup.
Dawg and Bogey did their business, and then we descended on the Hole. I headed for the counter, which was surprisingly quiet for the number of customers seated in the café. Eddy scooted off to check on her Mahjongg-playing flock.
Kate had a rag wrapped around the milk steamer and was working off the residue. “Welcome back, stranger,” she said.
“Where’s Anna?”
“This is the first breather we’ve had all morning. I sent her in back with some lunch.”
I cocked a brow. “This is the third Sunday it’s been this way. You think we need more help?”
Kate lifted a shoulder. “I’m not sure if it’s busy because it’s cooling off and people want to cozy up or what.” Her eyes scanned the place. “Feels good, though, even if it’s temporary. Here.” She handed me a plate with a crumbled slice of chocolate chip banana bread that had been sitting on the back counter. I accepted it with glee.
It sure did feel good that the economy was at least moving in the right direction. The last couple of years were rough on everyone, particularly on small businesses. If we hadn’t had Eddy’s support and willingness to forgo our monthly rent once in awhile, we would have been in real trouble. It felt damn good to be in a financial upswing, no matter how tentative it may be.
“Shay O’Hanlon!” Rocky zoomed through the doorway leading to the back room. “Did you know Anna is going to make virtual reality worlds for burn victims to escape to when they are being treated for their injuries? They have to go through terrible treatments. Daily wound cleaning to remove dead tissue. Do you know how bad that hurts, Shay O’Hanlon?”
Before I had a chance to answer with a resounding no, Rocky foraged full steam ahead. “I do not know either. But it has to be very, very bad. More than four hundred fifty thousand people are burned every year, usually at home.” His eyes got real big. “Almost four thousand of those people die. Die dead, Shay O’Hanlon. Deceased. Expired. Croaked.”
Ouch.
Before Rocky had a chance to wind himself into a burn facts statistical frenzy, I asked, “Where’s Coop, Rocky?”
He pointed over to one of the groupings of easy chairs. Now that I looked closer, I caught sight of the top of Coop’s head peeking over the back of a chair that faced away from the counter. After exchanging a few more morbid comments with Kate and Rocky, I headed toward Coop.
The four chairs that circled a large, low coffee table were all occupied. I gingerly set my items on the round tabletop and studied my best friend. He was out like a light. The Duluth gig, playing phone book delivery boy, and helping me sneak into the cop shop must’ve really done a number on him. One hand rested on the edge of an open notebook computer that was balanced precariously on his lap. His other arm hung over the side of the chair, fingertips dangling a breath away from a to-go cup of coffee that rested on the floor.
I stepped over his sizable feet and perched on the table’s edge.
He didn’t stir.
I picked up my bread and took a couple bites. The blissful burst made my taste buds do backflips. I chomped happily and considered my snoozing pal. Coop would never win awards for fashion sense. He wore a holey, button-down sweater over a faded Pink Floyd T-shirt. Blue jeans with fraying cuffs covered the top of well-worn, brown work boots.
I crumbled off another piece of bread and leaned forward, holding it under Coop’s nose. His nostrils twitched. Then he inhaled deeply. I waved the chunk a little. This time he cracked an eye and peered blearily at me.
“You better be sharing,” he said, his voice hoarse.
The grin that’d been playing at the corners of my mouth blossomed into a full-fledged smile. “Sure. Open wide, little boy.”
He complied and I delivered. His eye drifted shut again as he chewed slowly. Once he swallowed, he said, “I’m on the case of Krasski’s friends and enemies. Just taking a fiver.”
I nudged his calf with my tennis shoe. “I need you to do something else first.”
“What?”
“Come with me to visit the hippie queen of Minneapolis.”
This time both eyes popped open and he blinked, his eyelids not quite in sync with each other. “Come again?”
“We’re going to visit a friend of JT’s. Her name is Taffy Abernathy.”
“Give me another bite. And you’re a liar.”
I handed him the rest of the crumbly mess. “Nope. She and JT are pals from way back.”
Coop shoved the rest of the bread in his maw and chewed. He managed to say around the food, “Never heard of her.”
“Me either. But she knows a crap load about Krasski. Maybe why JT’s been so …” I trailed off with a grimace. “Why she never told me, never told any of us, about Krasski or the restraining order. Wait till you hear about Dimples.”
Coop swallowed and licked his lips. “Who the hell is Dimples?”
“JT’s grandfather.”
“Really.” He looked skeptically at me as he shut down the computer and slid it in his backpack. “Dimples? Seriously?”
“Yeah. It’s not his real name, but it’s what he goes by. When he smiles, you can see the name is perfect. He’s looney as a drunken pigeon. Come on,” I said and proceeded to fill Coop in on Eddy and Bogey’s deep-sea dive and the rambling dirt we’d mined from Dimples. Once we were buckled in the truck and headed toward Taffy’s, I finished the story.
Coop took a sip from his now lukewarm caffeine-infused beverage. He said, “If she’s a hippie, maybe she has a little wacky tobaccy.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“I told Eddy the same thing.”
One of the many things I loved about Coop was that he could make me laugh no matter what.
I pulled to the curb in front of a cream-colored bungalow that sat on a corner lot in Minneapolis’s St. Anthony neighborhood. A cedar plank fence enclosed the backyard. Reddish-colored ivy covered a good portion of the fence. The yard was full of orange and brown leaves, and it could use at least one more good raking before the snow flew.
We mounted a set of on-the-brink-of-crumbling cement stairs and I rung the doorbell. After a few seconds, Taffy swung the door opened. Now that I could see her from head to toe, she was even tinier than I thought. The peasant shirt hung loosely around her hips. Faded jeans and Birkenstocks completed the ensemble.
“Come on in,” Taffy said with a welcoming smile. “My husband took the kids out for ice cream so we could have a little peace and quiet.” She turned her attention to Coop. “And this is?”
“Nick Cooper,” I said. “A good friend of mine.” I added as an afterthought, “Of JT’s too. Eddy had things to take care of, so I hauled him along for the ride.”
“Well, come on in, then. Nice to make your acquaintance, Nick.”
They shook hands. “It’s just Coop,” he told her. Eddy and Coop’s on-again off-again girlfriend, Luz, were the only two people who dared call Coop by his given name.
“Coop it is then.” Taffy backed up to allow us entrance.
That’s when I noticed a puffy, snow-white something on the floor near her feet. It scrabbled backward as we stepped inside, nails making a scraping sound on the hard surface.
I did a double take. The thing had bright white feathers and a little red doodad on the top of its head. “Is that a …”
Taffy followed my gaze. “A chicken? Yup. We raise a lot of our own food. It’s Shay, right?”
I nodded, my eyes glued to the chicken.
She said, “Shay and Coop, meet Chelsea ‘I Really Am a Big Scare-
dy-Chicken’ Chicken.”
Chelsea had moved away from us and stood on two thin legs in the hall, bobbing her bright-red combed head and keeping a beady eye on Coop and me.
I wondered when Taffy said they raised a lot of their own stuff if she meant they snacked on Chelsea Chicken’s drumsticks when the time came or if they simply ate eggs she might produce. I hoped it was the latter.
Coop read my mind. With a look of fear, he asked, “Do you, um, you know, fry her up?”
At that, Taffy looked horrified. “Oh no. The kids would never go for that. Chelsea and a few other chickens that we keep out back live pretty happy lives here. If they stop laying eggs or don’t take to the city, we bring them to my sister’s farm in Wisconsin. There they can live in peace and quiet until they go to the big poultry coop in the sky.” Taffy laughed. “As long as I don’t wear Chelsea on my head when we cross into Wisconsin, we’re good. That’s a crazy, little-known Minnesota law that’s still on the books.”
Coop sighed. “That’s the kind of life I want, minus the poultry coop in the sky.”
We followed Taffy into the living room. While it was evident that kids lived here by the scattering of toys across the floor, the place was actually pretty neat. It didn’t smell like a chicken coop, either. The room held a bright blue couch, two contrasting yellow recliners, a coffee table made out of weathered wood, and a large hutch displaying family pictures filled the room. The walls were covered with framed—and what looked to be original—movie posters of the four Herbie the Love Bug films.
Coop and I settled on the couch. Taffy sat across from us on the edge of one of the recliners.
Chelsea bobbed over and, with a couple of soft clucks, perched smack-dab on top of Taffy’s right shoe. Taffy looked at the blob on her foot with affection. “She likes my feet for some reason. Even takes a ride around once in awhile.”
I glanced past the arm of the couch. Lying in a polished log-frame pet hammock was the strangest-looking dog I’d ever laid eyes on.
Taffy said, “That’s Hemingway. He’s our pet pygmy goat. We make our own goat cheese, yogurt, butter, that kind of thing. Even lotion. We do things a little differently in this house. We try to turn established rituals upside down. Take married names, for one.”
“Ah,” I said, “I was right. Abernathy is your maiden name, but your kid answered the phone Abernathy residence. Did your husband …”
Taffy grinned. “He took my name instead of me taking his. We thought it would be a good lesson for the kids that nothing has to be set in stone.”
Coop said, “That’s actually a good idea. I’m all for shaking up the establishment.”
At that moment, Hemingway swung his head toward Taffy and gave a little bleat. I figured this was going to be a doozy of a story, regardless what we found out about JT and Krasski. That thought brought me back to the reality of why we were there. A fist of distress gave my heart a fast squeeze as I wondered what JT was going through right now. Scared and lonely, for sure. Those emotions mirrored themselves inside me. I hoped to hell they were keeping her safe in the clink.
“So,” Taffy’s voice brought me back, “You wanted to see my Krasski souvenir book.” Her tone took on a sarcastic edge. She hefted a dog-eared, wire-bound notebook that had newspaper clippings hanging out from three sides off the coffee table and plopped it on her lap. “What exactly are you looking for?”
How much to tell her? She’d been through quite a bit with JT. I decided to let it fly. “JT’s in jail, Taffy.”
“In jail? As in, inside a jail cell in jail?” Any vestiges of humor melted off her now-pale face.
I nodded. “We were at the Renaissance Festival yesterday, and, well, one thing led to another. I kind of stumbled on a dead body in one of the privies. Then they arrested JT.”
“Whoa, hold on,” Taffy said, leaning forward, elbows on her knees, hands on her cheeks. “A dead body in one of the Porta Potties?”
I nodded.
She asked, “What did they arrest her for?”
I closed my eyes. “The murder of Russell Krasski.”
The next few moments were filled with dead silence. Not even Hemingway or Chelsea made a peep. The ticking of a clock on top of the hutch sounded unnaturally loud.
Finally Taffy cleared her throat and said hoarsely, her voice filled with a mix of disbelief and relief, “The bastard’s dead.” After a few seconds, she refocused on me with narrowed eyes. “What exactly happened?”
I explained, ending with the chat that Eddy and I had with Dimples that led us to her.
“Wow. What a mess.” Taffy cupped a hand over her mouth and stared off in the distance.
Coop said, “Yeah, it’s a cluster. But,” he patted my leg, “don’t you worry. We’ll spring JT.” I wasn’t sure if he was comforting Taffy or me.
I said, “What we’d like to do is take a look in your scrapbook and see if we can figure out who else would’ve liked to see Krasski hung out to dry.”
Taffy patted the book and choked on a derisive laugh. “There’s plenty of suspects in here, I’m sure. But before you start your hunt, I have a question.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Did JT ever mention communion wine to you?” Taffy peered first at Coop and then at me.
Communion wine? I shot Coop a puzzled glance. What could that have to do with what was going on?
“No, she didn’t,” I said. To my knowledge, JT wasn’t the least bit religious. Other than comparing notes on our feelings regarding organized religion when we first hooked up, and learning that we both loved the Christmas season anyway, church and all that went with it wasn’t part of our lives.
I steeled myself for more new revelations in the continued shakeup of my world.
Before Taffy had a chance to launch into it, Hemingway the Pygmy goat chose that particular moment to rouse himself. He le
t out a cross between a bleat and a baa, somehow bounced out of the hammock, and landed on his cloven hooves with a thud. He rocketed himself straight up in the air and then launched his stumpy body toward Taffy. Chelsea Chicken let out a startled squawk and tumbled off Taffy’s foot. She righted herself, and the chase was on. Chelsea charged out of the room, wings flapping, with Hemingway on her three-toed heels, white feathers swirling in their wake.
In a matter of seconds, they came roaring back, this time with Hemingway in the lead bleating bloody murder. Chelsea bawk, bawk, bawked sharply, flapping her stumpy wings hard and leaping up and pecking Hemingway’s butt every few steps. They raced through the room and out the opposite door, the racket fading and then disappearing altogether.
“Sorry about that,” Taffy said as she tried to stifle a strained laugh. “That’s their after-wake-up exercise routine. They’re outside now.”
Coop clapped a hand to his chest. “Holy macaroni. How’d they get out?”
“My highly intelligent, yet highly procrastination-prone husband installed a one-way pet gate in the back door. It allows the menagerie to go outside but not come back in unless we’re here to supervise.”
I thought we had it bad with the dogs.
Taffy settled back in the chair. “So where was I?” Then she leaned forward again. “Jeez. I’m a terrible hostess. The story is kind of involved. Can I get either of you something to drink? Or snack on? Iced tea? Water? Trail mix?”
I said, “Water, if you don’t mind.”
Taffy looked expectantly at Coop.
“Iced tea would be great. Thanks, Taffy.”
“Groovy gravy. Should’ve thought to ask sooner.” She stood up and headed out the same doorway that Chelsea and Hemingway had fled through.
After she’d cleared the room, Coop leaned toward me. “What the hell’s up with communion wine?”
“No idea,” I whispered. “How about living with a chicken and a goat in your house? Gives a whole new meaning to fighting like dogs and cats.”
“No shit.”
Taffy returned, cutting off our brief conversation. In one hand she held two sturdy, blue-gray clay mugs by the handles. They looked familiar. In her other hand she had a glass of clear liquid. She handed me the glass, set one of the mugs on an end table by her chair, and gave the other to Coop.
Shay O'Hanlon Caper 03 - Pickle in the Middle Murder Page 10