It embarrassed me to think how bad I must look. Sheila covered the mirror in my bathroom, so I knew it couldn’t be good. However, I could still feel how puffy my face was. I imagined a lurid purple and green necklace of bruises around my neck.
Oddly enough, Ben did not seem put off by my rough spots. In fact, his expression was not one of disgust, but of admiration. “I can’t believe you. This is the second time you’ve managed to get away from a killer. I understand about adrenaline, but that woman who tried to strangle you outweighs you by sixty pounds at least. She had the advantage.”
“No. I had the advantage. I have Anya. Someone to live for.”
He shook his head. “You are amazing.”
I tried to shrug but it hurt too much. Muscles I’d never met were issuing formal complaints.
“A child changes everything,” I said. I thought someday I might tell him exactly how my child changed my life’s journey.
“Sheila mentioned to me that you were looking at a rental in Webster Groves. The owner is Leighton Haversham. Turns out, he’s an old friend of my father’s. I bumped into Leighton in the grocery store, and we got to talking. Leigh explained to me that he has pets that require babysitting while he’s on book tours. If you are interested in that converted garage of his, he’s willing to work out a barter. The monthly rent could be reduced in return for being on call to watch his pets. Their names are Petunia and Monroe.”
“Petunia?” I whispered. “Monroe?”
Ben laughed. “Can you believe it? And Petunia is a boy dog who’s scared of his own shadow. Leighton doesn’t like to leave poor Petunia at the kennel, because it’s too stressful on the pug. He comes back literally sick as a dog. Monroe is a donkey. I guess it’s hard to find someone to come over and feed Monroe. But I figure any woman who can get the best of two murderers can handle a donkey. Is it a deal?” Ben named a reduced monthly rental fee that was well within my budget.
I was thrilled, although it hurt too much to smile. All I needed now was to come up with the deposit, plus first and last month’s rent. Ben entertained me with snippets about a program he heard on NPR and an article he read in the New York Times. I liked hearing how his mind worked, and how big his world was.
As he was leaving, Ben kissed my forehead, and then leaned closer, his lips brushing mine. It wasn’t a kiss so much as a promise. “I’ll be back. I don’t want to tire you out, and we have all the time in the world.”
Or not, given my ability to attract murderers.
I should have been delirious with joy. But I wasn’t. I felt mildly depressed. Linnea looked in on me. “I can tell you’re feeling poorly. Painkillers will mess with your mood, for sure. Try not to fret about it, hon.”
The next day, Johnny stopped in with a bouquet of white daisies mixed with orange, red, pink, and yellow zinnias. I liked them even more than Ben’s roses, because I knew Johnny had taken the time to pick these himself.
“When they hauled you off in that ambulance, I was holding them tickets to Riverport. Hope you don’t mind, but I went ahead and asked Clancy if she’d like to go with me.”
“Good. No reason to waste the tickets.”
After telling me a bit about the band, Johnny talked a mile a minute about the evacuation, Ellen’s wild accusations, the crowd’s initial angry rumblings, and finally their appreciation for getting them outside safely.
“I can’t ever forgive myself for not keeping an eye on you. I was too focused on helping everyone else. Mert liked to kill me because you got hurt. If I’d caught up with that evil woman before the police did, well …” And he stopped himself.
I was left wondering exactly what he might have done. My best friend and her brother both displayed alarming propensities for retribution, a trait I needed to consider carefully.
That said, Johnny’s killer instincts thrilled Sheila to no end. She was in and out of my room a dozen times a day reporting on his progress in eradicating the vermin.
When word came from Mr. Sanchez that he had decided to stay on in Mexico indefinitely, Sheila wasted no time in offering Johnny the job of caring for her yard, in addition to his regular work at La Femme.
“The money’s real helpful, and there’s a lot to be done here to get it prettified. A whole lot, if you catch my drift.” Johnny winked at me.
I knew exactly what he meant. Sheila had pretty much torn up every inch of her grass with her mole removal antics.
I stayed at Sheila’s house for a week. I appreciated the visitors. I really did.
That said, I couldn’t help longing for the one visitor who didn’t put in an appearance: Detweiler. The constant pain in my heart hurt more than my neck, shoulder, and ribs put together — and broken hearts can take forever to mend.
Epilogue
I was walking Gracie back to the store after a potty break when a blue Toyota Solara pulled into our lot. A woman hopped out and slammed the driver side door shut with a bang. Her baseball cap was pulled down so low over her face that it obscured her identity. Striding toward me, her feet slapped the pavement of our parking lot. Her hands were balled into fists, knocked at her sides.
I knew her from somewhere, but where?
Grace growled as the intruder drew closer.
The hairs stood up on the back of my neck, and my stomach twisted in fear. There was menace in this woman’s approach.
“We need to talk.” Brenda Detweiler crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me, daring me to make a move.
The back door of the store swung open. Dodie appeared there, framed by the doorsill and holding a trash bag in hand. She saw us and froze. Slowly, she lifted her cell phone so I could see it. I nodded at her.
“Please let me past,” I said to Brenda.
“You better listen to me. Or else.” Detweiler’s wife crowded my personal space. Her face contorted with anger. Her T-shirt bore a softball league logo, and her jeans were worn and faded.
I looked away, hoping to avoid a confrontation. That soft growl from Gracie continued as she pricked up her ears. I gripped her collar more securely, but I didn’t respond to Brenda.
“I’m talking to you! Do you hear me?”
“Please … not now.” This was my first day back at work, and I wasn’t up to a quarrel.
From her spot half inside the store, Dodie spoke in an authoritative voice. “Kiki? You need help? I can call the cops.”
“I think we’re good here.” I sidestepped Brenda and moved toward the door.
Brenda was fast on her feet. She managed to shoulder bump me hard enough that I lost my balance. I nearly fell. Gracie jumped out of my way.
Brenda wasn’t done. “There’s more to this than you know. He misses you.”
I walked away.
I missed him, too.
INK, RED, DEAD
Book #3 in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series
1
Mid-August/Ladue, Missouri
Early Thursday morning
“The minute we pulled into the driveway, I told Clancy this was a bad idea. A very, very bad idea. I had this yucky feeling. Be sure to put that in the report.” I pointed at the pad where Detective Stan Hadcho of the St. Louis Police Department took notes. His pen moved across the pad. A slight breeze lifted a strand of his jet black hair. Instinctively, I leaned forward to see if I could catch a little of the fresh air. But it was no use. The atmosphere was thick with nasty smells. Even the walnut table where we had gathered around had its own funky stink. I could hear myself wheezing as my lungs struggled to cope.
“That so? You thought it was a bad idea. And you are?” His voice was muffled by the tissues he’d stuffed up his nose.
“I’m Kiki Lowenstein. This is my friend Clancy Whitehead. We work together at Time in a Bottle, that’s a scrapbook store south of 40, right off of Brentwood Boulevard. When we got here, I had a bad feeling.”
A dribble of sweat ran down the cop’s temple. The backs of his hands gleamed with perspiration. A ring of wet spread out f
rom his neck along his collar, but he didn’t loosen his tie. That’s self-discipline for you. Even in the blazing heat of a mid-August day in Missouri, this man managed to look like a natty dresser.
Clancy huddled in her chair, trying not to touch any of the gross surfaces that surrounded us. I met Clancy shortly after she and her husband split up. Back then, a full day for her was alphabetizing her spice rack. She hated her life. When I suggested that she help us out at Time in a Bottle, Clancy jumped on the change. Since then, she’s proven herself to be an invaluable part-time employee who’s always willing to come in at the last minute and work. Although she’s not much of a crafter, she’s learning. She’s highly organized, a trait that’s not part of my DNA. If I’m being totally honest, I’m glad to have Clancy around because my boss, Dodie, also hired another part-timer, Bama Vess. To say that Bama and I don’t get along would be to put a nice spin on our relationship. I don’t like her, and she doesn’t like me. I think I have good reason. Bama acts like she’s hot stuff, and she’s always taking off work time. For example, she couldn’t come to the crop at Marla’s house. Bama said she was “busy.”
Busy my big butt.
Bama doesn’t like leaving the store.
“You had a bad feeling,” Hadcho repeated, more to himself than to us.
“Right. I’m a card-carrying Episcopalian, high church, but I respect the power of intuition. We should have turned around and gone home. Back to the store.”
Clancy was trembling so hard that her chair was clacking against the table. She fluffed her hair and re-applied her bright red Chanel lipstick. It was a reflexive action; her attempt at regaining control. Unfortunately her hand shook like a tree in a tornado and as a result, she definitely had colored out of the lines. It might have been comical under other circumstances. Not today.
“Your business is actually in Richmond Heights, not St. Louis proper, and the two of you are here, why?” Hadcho kept writing.
“Because we were supposed to hold a scrapbook party here. We call them crops,” I said.
“Really?” Hadcho raised his eyebrows and scanned the stacks of newspapers that were stacked high, forming tattered gray walls around us. Although we were sitting in a dining room, the only indication of its intended use was a round wooden table with four chairs. We occupied three of the seats. A big calico cat calmly washed her paws as she sat on the fourth seat.
“Why would you hold an event here?” The cop wondered. “Doesn’t seem like the sort of image anyone would want to project to their customers.”
He was right. This place was a total dump. A disaster. A mess. Actually, there weren’t enough negative adjectives in my vocabulary to cover it.
Clancy and I work for Dodie Goldfader, the owner of Time in a Bottle. Her store is considered by many to be the premier scrapbook store in the Midwest. Dodie has high standards, sometimes impossibly so. But to make a long story short: Dodie had decreed we’d do off-site events. So Clancy and I were here at Marla Lever’s house to put on a scrapbook party while Marla played hostess.
That was the plan.
The reality was different. One look at the unkempt state of the place told us something was seriously amiss. On closer inspection…well…my “spidey” senses went on full alert. I opened my phone and dialed 911. Hadcho had been a few blocks away in his police cruiser.
“Detective? I’ll stand outside and tell people the scrapbook event has been called off. That okay? Drat.” Clancy paused midway in returning her Chanel lipstick to her purse. She held up the white bag for our inspection. “Just look at this ink stain. Soaked right through the leather. The pen I was carrying must have come uncapped. Shoot, and I really like this purse.”
The pen had also jabbed through the leather and doodled on her nice white slacks. I decided not to tell her because there was nothing she could do about it, and I figured that she was shook up enough. Why make things worse? But every step she took caused her purse to swing forward and back like a pendulum, and another navy blue ink smear decorated the hip of her white slacks.
“No drycleaner on earth will ever get out that,” Hadcho said. “Those are linen. Nice stuff.”
The man knew his fabrics. I waited until Clancy had walked away before telling Hadcho, “I wanted to turn around and go home. Really I did. I knew something was wrong.” Was I ever right about wrong.
“Next time that happens, pay attention,” said Hadcho, pointing a pen at me. “Because your instincts were right, and now you’ve stepped in a mess.”
“You mean because Marla is a hoarder?”
“No, because you have poop on your shoes.” Hadcho glanced down at my Keds. “How about if you clean those off? We’re going to be here a while.”
2
“Start at the beginning,” Hadcho said. “Had you ever been here?”
“Nope,” we answered in chorus.
“What did you see when you first arrived?”
“We saw this…this…garbage dump,” said Clancy. “We double-checked the address, and then we tried to track down the woman we were here to meet.”
“Marla,” I added, “Marla Lever.” With that, I took over telling the story…
“I wonder if her car’s here,” I had said to Clancy as we trooped through the grass. We’d already tried knocking at the front door and calling. Now we waded toward the detached garage, waving away the smoke signals of bugs that flew up in our wake.
Cupping our hands around our eyes, we pressed our faces to the dirty window. We could barely make out Marla Lever’s car. Old furniture, lawn chairs, tools, and gadgets were stuffed around a shiny gold Impala with a cream colored leather roof. A dank smell oozed from the building.
“What do you think?” Clancy turned to me.
“She has to be here. Her car is.”
“Unless someone gave her a ride somewhere.”
“Who would do that?” asked Clancy. We both knew that Marla was a loner. I’d never seen her come into our store with friends.
Nor had I seen her leave with buddies. In fact, I’d never heard her talk about people at all.
“You don’t think she got confused, do you? Maybe she thought the scrapbook event was going to be held at the store? When did you last talk?”
“Yesterday. I said we’d be here early. She seemed a little nervous.”
“No kidding? Wonder why.” Clancy usually isn’t sarcastic, but she had agreed with me that moving scrapbook events from one customer’s house to the next was a bad idea.
“She was going to try to get someone to come mow her grass.”
“That ‘someone’ gave up.”
“Obviously.” I scratched at a spot behind my knee. Tick bite. I just knew it. A trickle of perspiration ran down my face.
“You figure she bailed on us? Maybe when she couldn’t get the grass cut?”
“I have no idea.” Crickets sang lustily in the grass, falling silent as we walked nearer.
“Call her again.”
I opened my cell phone, redialed Marla’s number, and listened. This time we heard ringing in the house.
“Up to you.” Clancy faked a tap dance, waved her arms and sang, “Shall we stay or shall we go? Da-da-da-ta-da-da-ta.”
That Clancy. What a card. I shook an ant off my sleeve and weighed our options.
We could go back to the store. That meant facing Rebekkah the Terrible, Dodie’s daughter, our new “Sales Mangler.” (Yes, that’s what her business cards said. I didn’t bother to point out the typo.)
Or we could sit in Clancy’s car, crank up the A/C and wait, hoping Marla would show up. Maybe she was out running errands and got behind.
Errands on foot? In this heat? I was dreaming, wasn’t I? Or we could leave. That nagging voice in my head suggested we hightail it.
But we couldn’t leave. Twelve people had RSVPed, promising to join us here in forty-five minutes for a crop. We would have to try to head those scrappers off. At the very least, we needed to post a message on the front door.
>
Clancy noticed the pained expression on my face.
“The scrapbookers aren’t going to like this,” I said.
“We could stand at Marla’s door and pretend to be knocking when the others drive up,” she said, in a voice that was oh-so casual. “This whole fiasco would look like a surprise to us, which it is.”
“We could both look pitiful,” I added.
I had practice at that. I do “pitiful” pretty well. “That way maybe they’d blame Marla. Not us.”
Sounds petty, but I did not want to get blamed for cancelling this crop. I know from experience that scrapbookers do not take kindly to such disappointments. Loading up all their gear is a lot of work. Excitement runs high at scrapbooking events. Tempers naturally follow at a fevered pitch. Furthermore, we’d had to turn down customers who wanted to come once they heard I was teaching a class on how to incorporate newspapers as a journaling device on their scrapbook and journal pages. In fact, we’d titled the crop: What’s Black and White and Read All Over Your Pages?
Since it was summer in St. Louis, and the Cards were winning, everyone wanted to incorporate their exploits into their scrapbook albums. My nifty idea did just that. Now all my supplies were sitting in the trunk of Clancy’s car—and the crop looked like it was a non-starter.
“Drat.” That was all I could muster. I’d lobbied long and loud against this traveling “dog and pony” show. I’m a control freak. I liked having events in the store because I could predict the environment. When you go to someone’s home, you never know if they’ll have a proper work space, good lighting, and so on. Or if they’ll have a rambunctious dog or an ailing live-in relative or a backed up toilet.
Could happen.
Huh. It had happened.
Louise Hudson had a dachshund who couldn’t stop piddling with joy at our arrival. Ekla Guitano’s father-in-law insisted on sitting with us to watch what we were doing—and managed to fart at regular intervals. But the worst mess had been Kathi Zantini’s toilet. It overflowed, sending a tsunami of sewage into the family room where we were crafting.
Kiki Lowenstein Books 1-3 & Cara Mia Delgatto Books 1-3: The Perfect Series for Crafters, Pet Lovers, and Readers Who Like Upbeat Books! Page 47