by Cindy Brown
He handed me a cold bottle of Kilt Lifter ale. My mind presented me with a brief flash of Jeremy’s strong tanned legs in a kilt. I thought about lifting that kilt and smiled.
“Beer makes me happy too,” Jeremy said, popping the top on mine and grabbing a bottle for himself. He settled himself against the cooler. “So you’re scared of water?”
Wow. Way to head right into the issue. He sure wasn’t from my family.
I took a big swig of cold beer and nodded.
“Just big bodies of water?”
I shook my head. “I don’t even like baths.”
“Really?”
“People have drowned in the bathtub, you know,” I said, more sharply than intended.
“I know.” Jeremy’s eyes softened and I realized that he had seen a lot of things I didn’t want to imagine.
“It’s a long story.”
Jeremy eyes, still soft, met mine. “We have all afternoon.”
So I told him. About long ago when we lived in Spokane, Washington. About one winter when I was eleven and didn’t want to take my little brother Cody with me when I went ice-skating with my girlfriends. About ignoring him after my mother insisted he go with us to the park. About the crack of the ice and the sight of Cody’s yellow hair floating beneath the surface of the pond.
“He died?”
“No. He lives in Phoenix now too. In a group home.”
“Oh.” Jeremy was probably familiar enough with bodily functions to understand that the icy cold pond water had kept my brother alive. And that the lack of oxygen had damaged Cody’s brain.
“It’s a nice place.” I said it partly to get the conversation back on a happier note, and partly because the group home was a nice place, a bungalow that housed several guys with cognitive disabilities and was staffed with some really good people, especially Matt, Candy’s boyfriend. Matt had a calm presence, a great sense of humor, and a real love for the guys, like a wise older cousin.
Jeremy put down his beer. “Ivy, I’m so sorry.”
“About Cody?” I said, too quickly, too harshly. I did not want pity for me or my brother.
“That the accident happened.” He put an arm around me.
“Thanks.” Maybe he could understand.
I leaned my head on his shoulder and watched the sun fracture into skittering diamonds on the surface of Lake Pleasant. Jeremy shifted next to me, and I turned my head to see those golden eyes watching me. He bent his head toward mine and…
A stinky spray of water hit us smack in the kissers.
“What the hell!”
Jeremy jumped up. A gray-speckled dog shook itself in front of us, dirty water flying everywhere. I ducked my head into my knees to get my face out of range of the doggy-smelling shower.
The dog, some sort of wiry-haired hound mix, stopped shaking and stared at us, panting, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.
“Good dog,” I said. “Go away now, so I can kiss Jeremy.”
Jeremy laughed and turned to me, so he didn’t see the dog run between his legs until he wound up ass-over-teakettle on the pebbly sand. “Hey!” He stood up, reaching a cautious hand toward the mutt. “What’d you do that for?”
I swear the dog looked like he wanted to reply. Instead, he bumped Jeremy with his nose, wet sandy whiskers trembling.
Putting my empty beer bottle down, I scanned the shoreline. “Where’s his owner?” I didn’t see anything except a small aluminum boat sitting at the edge of the lake, maybe a quarter mile away.
“No collar,” said Jeremy. “Maybe he’s a stray.”
The dog whimpered and bumped him again. “Are you hungry, boy?” Jeremy stood up and stepped toward the cooler when the dog nipped his ankle. “Hey!”
The dog ran a few feet toward the boat, then stopped and looked back at us. When we didn’t move, he ran back. It looked like he was going for my ankle this time, but I jumped up before he could get me.
“Ha!” I said. “I’m smarter than you, dog.”
The dog tilted his head, looked back at the boat, and then at me again. I reassessed his intelligence. He seemed pretty smart, like those animal heroes in the movies.
“Want to take a walk?” I said to Jeremy, gesturing toward the boat.
“Nah.” He brushed the sand off his shorts. “But I’ll race you!” He took off like a shot. The dog caught up and then passed him, zooming up ahead. I, no runner, took off at a decent trot, and enjoyed the view from behind, if you know what I mean. Jeremy turned around once, jogging backward to make sure I was following. I could see him smile. I waved and kept trotting, hoping he didn’t prefer athletic women.
The dog got to the boat first and clambered in. Jeremy approached, then turned, and waved his arms at me. “Call 911!”
Wow, it really was like those animal hero movies. I grabbed my cellphone out of my back pocket and dialed. Nothing. I looked at the signal strength.
“No reception!” I shouted.
I couldn’t be sure Jeremy heard me, because he had disappeared into the boat, which was grounded on the rocky beach. I ran the rest of the way.
“Couldn’t call,” I panted, when I was near enough that he could hear me. I stood a few feet from the bow of the boat and a safe distance from the lake.
“It’s okay,” said Jeremy, kneeling in the boat. “I think he’s coming around.”
“He” was a guy in his sixties with a mustache, closed eyes, and a sunburnt face that looked a little familiar. He wore jeans and a Western shirt and lay in the bottom of the boat amidst fishing gear, bags of Cheetos, and Coke and Budweiser cans. The dog, also in the boat, seemed satisfied that help had arrived and busied himself trying to open a pack of Twinkies.
An alarm sounded faintly in my mind, caused by something more than the water or even the unconscious man. “Is he asleep?” I whispered.
“No need to whisper. We want him to wake up. Sir,” Jeremy addressed the man in the boat in a loud voice. “Can you hear me?”
The man just breathed noisily.
My mental alarm chimed louder. “Can’t we just let him sleep it off?”
“Not out here,” said Jeremy. “Between sun exposure and dehydration, he could be in trouble. Sir?” he said again, loudly.
The man’s eyes twitched open. They were silvery gray and matched his mustache.
“Hank!” I said.
Hank blinked a few times at me, his bloodshot eyes trying to focus.
Though my alarm was ringing full blast, I put on a friendly face. “It’s Olive. I didn’t recognize you out of uniform.”
Hank didn’t look like he recognized me at all. “He knows my uncle,” I said to Jeremy, loud enough so Hank could hear too.
The mutt came over and licked his face. Hank shook his head and sat up.
“That’s a good dog you have there, sir,” said Jeremy. “He came and told us you were in trouble.”
Hank patted the mutt on its wiry head. “Yeah,” he said slowly.
“You okay?” I said.
He looked around. “Must have fallen asleep.”
“Do you have any water with you?” asked Jeremy.
Hank gestured behind him. “Whole lake full.”
“Drinking water, sir?” Jeremy asked. I was beginning to get an idea of what he dealt with on a regular basis.
Hank fumbled around the bottom of the boat and came up with an old-fashioned metal canteen.
“Why don’t you sip some water slowly,” said Jeremy.
Hank took a long drink from the canteen instead. “I’m fine,” he said. “Must’ve run aground when I fell asleep.”
“Sir…”
Hank reached for a Vietnam Vet cap that lay in a puddle of water in the bottom of the boat. He tugged it on and leveled a stare at Jeremy. “Now if you’ll get out of my boat, I’ll be o
ff.”
This was Uncle Bob’s friend?
“Sure thing.” Jeremy climbed out of the boat. “Just making sure everything’s okay.” He held his hands up—no foul. “Your dog seemed worried.”
Hank looked at the mutt for a long second. “He’s a good dog.” Hank got out of the boat, pushed it back into the lake and jumped in. He jerked the cord to the outboard motor and it roared to life. The dog ran to the bow and stood facing front, like a canine figurehead. Without looking at us again, Hank took off, the wake foaming white behind him.
The alarm in my head quieted as I watched Hank’s boat grow smaller and smaller. Something bothered me about him, something more than just his incredible rudeness. “I know you’re used to dealing with things like that,” I said to Jeremy, “but didn’t that seem a bit weird?”
“Did you say you didn’t recognize him out of uniform?” Jeremy’s eyes kept track of the boat as it got smaller and smaller.
“Yeah, he’s on the Sunnydale posse.”
“Then yeah, it does seem weird,” Jeremy said. “’Cause I could swear he was high.”
CHAPTER 11
I strolled into the theater after my day at the lake with Jeremy. My shoulders felt sunburned, my head a bit buzzed from the Kilt Lifter, and my stomach aflutter with the promise of romance. Somehow it all added up to a glorious feeling.
As I walked through the greenroom, I blew a kiss to Arnie, tugged on Candy’s veil, and even smiled at Zeb, who was writing in his black notebook, presumably making notes about a bubbling concoction that sat in front of him. He looked around to see who my smile was aimed at, realized it was him, and preened a bit, stroking the few hairs on his chin. My cellphone rang just as I opened the dressing room door—my uncle’s ringtone.
“And how are you this fine evening?” I plopped down in my chair.
“Someone’s in a good mood,” said Uncle Bob. He sounded like he was in a pretty good mood himself.
“Why yes, I am,” I said. “I just spent the day at the lake.” I put my cellphone on speaker and pulled my makeup case across the counter toward me.
“At the lake?” My uncle was well aware of my water phobia. In fact, he’d been after me to go to counseling for a while.
“I was in the company of a very fit fireman.” And because I had learned to always tell my uncle the truth, I added, “And I didn’t go near the water. Oh! I saw Hank.”
“Out fishing?”
“I think so,” I said carefully, wishing I hadn’t brought up the subject. “We didn’t talk much.” I began putting on my makeup.
“Hank’s a man of few words,” Uncle Bob said.
And a few too many beers. Or something else if Jeremy was right.
“So,” said my uncle, “I’m still knee deep in building materials, but I wanted to see how the investigation was going.”
“Good.” Foundation finished, I moved on to eye makeup. “I had a nice conversation with Charlie’s daughter on Friday.”
My uncle didn’t say anything. I figured he was doing that “wait and get them to say something” ploy, so I kept silent. Finally he said, “And?”
“And I talked to Bernice and made a few other calls over the weekend.” I had made a few other calls. No one had answered, but I did call.
“And?” my uncle said again.
Uh-oh. “And?”
“The neighborhood investigation?”
Phew. Though Uncle Bob and I hadn’t talked since Friday, he’d left me a voicemail asking me to canvas Charlie Small’s neighborhood, just to see if anyone saw anything fishy around the time he died. I had it all planned out.
“Yep,” I said. “Going to do that tomorrow.”
Another silence. Again I waited, though I also took the time to put the finishing touches on my eye makeup.
“Olive,” said my uncle, who did not sound in a good mood any longer. “What’s the first rule of a criminal investigation?”
“Do it as quickly after the incident as possible.”
“And Charlie died when?”
“But this isn’t a criminal investigation.”
“What sort of investigation is it?”
“We’re just trying to make sure that Charlie really did commit suicide.”
“And if he didn’t?’
“Then it was either an accident, or…” I stopped, having dug my own hole.
“Go on.”
“Or foul play, which would mean this is a criminal investigation,” I said, feeling like a seven-year-old who forgot to feed the fish again. “But come on. Who’s going to murder a seventy-eight-year-old by putting him in his car with the engine running?”
“Olive.”
“I was at the theater all weekend. All weekend from morning to late night.” And with Jeremy today, I thought, swallowing a lump of guilt.
A noise on the other end of the line sounded a bit like teeth grinding. “Olive, do you want to be an actor or a detective?”
Aye, there’s the rub. I really did want to be a detective. I also desperately wanted to be an actor, had ever since I was little. I felt like I was in love with two demanding men at the same time.
“Can’t I be both?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Can you?”
I could. I wanted both things so badly that I would find a way. “I can. I’m sorry. I’ll get to it first thing tomorrow. I’ll even get up early.”
Another silence.
“Really. I’ll hit the street by eight o’clock at the latest.”
“I should be in the office tomorrow afternoon,” said Uncle Bob. “Call me then and fill me in.” He hung up without saying goodbye.
CHAPTER 12
My sunburned shoulders now felt hot and tender, my head a bit achy, and my stomach aflutter with something other than romance. There were few people in the world I wanted to please as much as my uncle. I just hadn’t thought things all the way through, both in terms of what I needed to do for this investigation, and what it might mean to be a PI while pursuing an acting career. This not-thinking-things-through was an unfortunate habit of mine, as evidenced by my burned-up apartment.
But right now it was dress rehearsal, and I had to buck up and get into costume. I pulled on my first Teasel outfit, a tarted-up sailor suit with a pleated micro-miniskirt and a low-cut top that tied at the midriff.
I stared at myself in the mirror. The ridiculous and somehow sexy costume flattered me, as long I kept doing my morning sit-ups. But my face…Sixteen years old seemed a stretch. I figured that the distance onstage helped, but just in case, I put extra blush on the apples of my cheeks, hoping for a youthful glow.
Candy opened the door and glanced at me in the mirror. “You got a fever, hon?” She laid a hand on my forehead.
I wiped off the extra blush with a Kleenex. Strike that idea. “Just worried about looking young enough onstage,” I said.
“That’s the magic of theater,” said Candy. “You say you’re sixteen, the audience believes it.”
I noticed that she didn’t actually say anything about me looking young enough.
“I mean look at Liesl in The Sound of Music movie.” Candy whizzed around the dressing room, grabbing her nun costume and veil off a hanger. “She looked twenty-five, but we believed she was sixteen.”
“Actually it sounds like you thought she was twenty-five.”
“Huh.” That stopped her. “Yeah. I guess so.”
Oh well. I decided to believe in the magic of theater and finished getting ready. Once done, I took my place in the greenroom to wait with the rest of the cast and eat the homemade cookies supplied by one of the nun actresses.
“Hey,” Arnie said to me. “What happened to that big smile we saw earlier?”
“She’s worried about looking sixteen,” said Candy.
“Oh, dear,” said Bitsy. She didn�
�t say anything else, but she did look pointedly at the calorie-laden cookie in my hand. I took a big bite, just for spite and because it was delicious.
“No,” I said, as much to myself as anyone else. “I’m mad at myself. I need to do a neighborhood investigation and I really should have done it earlier.”
“Neighborhood investigation?” said Bitsy.
“Yeah, for that case I’m on. I need to go interview Charlie’s neighbors.”
“I told Amy about Ivy. Got her the job.” Marge poured a cup of coffee from the thermos she always brought.
“Amy?” Arnie said. “Are we talking about Charlie Small?”
“Yeah, I’m investigating his death.” I heard several intakes of breath. A clue? Nah. These were naturally dramatic folks.
“I thought he committed suicide,” Arnie said.
“You knew him?” I said.
“Sure.” Arnie helped himself to a cookie. “He was on our board.”
“And in my karaoke club,” said Bitsy.
“Everybody knew Charlie,” said Marge. “He was a sweetie.”
“So what’s a neighborhood investigation?” said Roger.
“Oh, I interview the neighbors, scout the area for clues, that sort of thing.”
“Do you want to use my spy sunglasses?” asked Arnie. “They look like regular sunglasses, but they have little mirrors inside them so you can see behind you.”
“I’d love to.” I couldn’t figure out how they’d help me interview neighbors, but I did want to try them out.
“You need other spy stuff, you just ask,” said Arnie. “I got everything.”
Before I could even ask why, Marge said, “Him and his gadgets. Nearly cost us our vacation last winter.”
“Airports are so big,” Arnie brushed the cookie crumbs off his hands, “that I take a cane in case my hip starts bugging me. Last time I took the wrong cane.”
“It has a sword hidden inside,” said Marge. “They thought we were pirates.”
The speaker in the greenroom crackled to life: “Places for top of the show.” The nuns scuttled off for their first scene. I did too. I wanted to watch from the wings to see how the show was shaping up—and, I admit, to see if Marge remembered her lines.