by Deany Ray
“There is a racketeering scheme,” Eddy said.
So many, many questions. But the first step to solving any case was finding out exactly which questions you should ask, so this had been a good day so far. I felt like we were on to something. Might as well celebrate with a little something sweet. I opened the doughnut box.
“Oh, by the way,” I asked. “Is there any news on Perry?”
Celeste exhaled a line of smoke. “I called earlier to check. There hasn’t been a change. The doctors are still optimistic.” She frowned. “At least that’s what they say.”
“Well, poo on that,” Marge said. “I was hoping he was better.”
“Yeah, it would be nice to have some good news for Lucas.” Celeste replied. “The kid is worried sick. What was that kid thinking?”
Eddy shrugged. “He was just looking for some action, and everything went loopy. Happens to us all.”
Celeste shot him a look. “Having someone try to shoot you after you try to rob a bank? That, I can assure you, does not happen to us all. I can tell you what’s up with my nephew. His male role models are the worst. That’s what’s up with him.”
Eddy shook his head. “One thing I’ve learned is to not argue with a woman when she’s got that tone that you’ve just heard.” He grinned at me and Marge. Neither one of us grinned back.
By then, we’d reached the office and Marge dropped me at my car. Celeste wanted to drive by Lucas’ place (aka my future I-can’t-believe-I-have-my-freedom-again place) to bring him more food and especially peanut butter, as requested. Once I’d said my quick goodbyes and settled in behind the wheel, I was overwhelmed with just how tired I felt. It felt like a hundred years had passed since I’d gotten out of bed. I closed my eyes just briefly to review the day.
We’d gone into the victim’s home “by an alternative entry method,” as Celeste would put it. Oh, to heck with that. I was too tired for fancy words. We’d just plain broken in. For my next trick, I’d helped cause a small explosion by placing a can of hairspray on the ground just so and telling Marge to shoot. That could have ended disastrously, but the day had just begun. Next, I had to look Alex in the eye and tell a bald-faced lie. It couldn’t be helped, but, still, it had torn me up inside; it felt very, very wrong. To top it off, through all the craziness, I’d been jumping around like mad, avoiding Eddy’s creepy moves.
Then for my grand finale, I may have helped uncover an extortion scheme. I’d had a little peek at the dark side of the hometown I had thought was kind of boring – except for the tendency to hold a festival almost every weekend to honor every fruit or vegetable or flower that anyone could name.
No wonder I was tired. I wanted a hot bath followed by something sweet or salty and a long, long sleep.
That, of course, was not to be, as I soon found out when I arrived at home. It was not to be because my mother was my mother. I knew that something was way off when I walked through the front door.
The first thing that I noticed was a smell. It was a smell I’d smelled before. It was…my heart almost stopped when I recognized the scent. Don’t let it be the spray. It was the one my mother whipped out when she felt the urge to purify. Nothing that was good ever happened next when my mom pulled out the spray.
My brother flew past me in the hall. He was a blur of white shirt and gray sweatpants with his sleeve held up against his nose.
“Brad!” I called after him. “What’s going on?”
“The smell!” he said. “I can’t take the smell for one more minute, Charlie. I’m out of here.” He reversed directions and headed for the door.
“What set her off this time?” I asked. “Brad, just give me a heads-up.”
After the day I’d had, was it too much to ask to come back to a home and not a combination of war zone/health-food store? I thought of the apartment that was supposed to have been my sweet escape. Soon, I thought. Please let me be able to move into my new place soon. I wondered how Lucas would feel about a very quiet roommate.
My brother didn’t take the time to answer. He was halfway to his car. I’d never seen him walk that fast.
The mighty cleansing spray. It was the only thing I’d ever seen pull him away from his computer games and his TV shows. Finally, I’d found something that would make my brother up and leave the well-worn, Brad-shaped corner of the old brown couch.
Frantically, I waved my hands back and forth next to my nose. Man, that was some strong stuff. If I could make it to my room and slam the door, maybe I could breathe. A girl could only hope. I wheeled around to run for it and ran smack-dab into my mother. I glanced down at her hands and – thank you, thank you, thank you – there was no spray bottle to be seen.
“Oh, sweetheart, there you are,” she said, letting out a sigh. “We’ve had such an awful time. All day long, I’ve sensed a…disturbance. Something within our four walls or maybe something going on with your father, you, or Brad.” She frowned and touched my forehead. “How are you doing, honey? Do you feel okay?”
“I’ve had better days,” I said.
She closed her eyes as though if she concentrated hard enough, she would know exactly what kind of catastrophe might be threatening her family. For a moment, she was lost in a kind of trance. I knew it would pass, because it always did.
The strange thing was that this time, she was kind of right. Was she sensing the fact that I had just broken into someone’s house and then told my best friend to pull a gun out of her purse to make a can of hairspray explode into the air? Did she know her only daughter had spent part of the day fleeing the police?
If my mom knew what I was up to, we’d be getting double whammies of her magic spray; we’d be choking on the stuff. If it was a disturbance she was looking for, it was standing in the hall. Disturbance really should have been my middle name.
My father shuffled into the hallway with a clothespin on his nose. Hmm. Really good idea. Did they sell those things in bulk?
“Are you done with the procedure?” he asked my mother warily. He was frightened, I supposed, that her answer would be no.
“The feeling’s passed,” she said. “I think now we’re safe, and I’ve opened up some windows to let out the smell.” Her mood changed quickly, from concerned to almost giddy. She clasped her hands together. “Charlie, you’re just in time. Dinner’s almost done. Tonight, we will begin with a nice fruit salad as an hors d'oeuvre.
Did she just say hors d'oeuvre? An hors d'oeuvre was a crunchy chip to stick in something gooey; an hors d'oeuvre was covered in cheese or sauce. A fruit salad was…neither cheese, nor gooey.
“And then we’ll have steamed veggies with an eggplant that I’ve stuffed with mushrooms and sweet potatoes,” she continued eagerly.
I exchanged glances with my dad. Where did she get these recipes? If it was a cookbook, maybe I could hide it.
My dad put an arm around her shoulders. “Your mom’s been working all day to make us something special.” His voice sounded tired. He kissed her on the cheek. “She wants to keep us Coopers healthy and that’s a noble goal.”
Yes, her heart was in the right place, but my stomach wasn’t having it. I wished there was some way to just politely skip the meal, except that I was starving.
Soon the three of us were gathered at the table. My mind wandered to the murder and the adventures of the day. I cut up the eggplant disaster on my plate, trying not to look at it too hard as juice from the orange mush mingled with the mushrooms. I moved the food around a little, hoping it would look like I’d had a bite.
“Yum, this is really good,” I said.
“Take some more!” my mother said.
“It’s fabulous,” I said, “but let’s save some for Brad.” What was a sister for? And where the heck was he?
We were quiet as my dad and I stared down at our food, folded napkins in our laps, sipped from our water glasses and did anything but eat.
My dad turned to my mother. “Feeling better now?”
“I’m still a l
ittle shaken, to tell you the truth. I just sensed…disaster.”
She should have checked the oven or the stove, I thought, then I stopped myself. I was just being mean.
I tried to think of anything except what was on my plate, so I thought some more about the case. How widespread was this racket, this protection-money thing? I glanced over at my dad. One person who could know was right across the table, cutting the tiniest possible bite from his eggplant entrée.
“Hey, Dad,” I said. I tried to make my tone sound disinterested, like I’d just had a random thought. “In all the years you’ve had the diner, have you had any problems? You know, with bullies, things like that?”
He glanced over at my mother, an alarmed look in his eyes. “Why would you want to know a thing like that?”
I shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. I just heard about some problems with other food places in some other city. About people wanting money and things getting kind of rough. But Springston’s such a nice town…”
Once again, he caught my mother’s eye, and I saw her nod. Was there something going on here?
My dad paused. “You’re old enough to know, I guess.” His voice was serious, which it almost never was. He put down his fork. “Do you remember a small fire in the back corner of the diner? I think you were maybe six.”
“Charlie was in second grade,” my mother reminded him. “I remember that. Second grade is when they always did their leaf-collection projects, and we were up working on her poster that night they called about the fire.”
“I do remember that,” I said. “Someone forgot to turn off something in the kitchen.” The whole thing had stuck in my memory, and now I was always checking to make sure the stove was off, an odd habit for a girl who hardly ever turned it on.
“Well, that’s what we told you at the time.” Dad leaned back in his chair. “But it was a bunch of lowlifes who make their money through pure meanness, by intimidating others. They wanted me to pay up, but I wasn’t playing their crappy little game. That little fire that you remember was their way of telling me to do what they say or else…”
Am I hearing this right?
My mother nodded, frowning. “That was an awful time.”
My dad took her hand across the table. “I’ve got to tell you, Charlie, we were really scared about what they might do next. Your mom put on a brave face, tried to keep things normal for you and the boys, but I could tell it hit her hard. I worried about the diner, but the thing that made me the maddest was that a bunch of no-good thugs were causing your mother grief. She’s sensitive, you know.”
She squeezed his hand and smiled. “We got through that mess together. Still, I don’t think I’ve ever been the same. After that, there hasn’t been a day when I didn’t worry about your father, or that you or your brothers might be in some kind of trouble, that someone could be hurting you out there in the world.”
Dad shot me a knowing look. “Life changed after that. You mother took to yoga and feng shui, communing with her flowers, purifying sprays. She found lots of ways to cope.”
Ah, finally, an explanation.
She smiled. “And now, don’t we have a nice life?”
“A perfect life,” he said, giving her a wink.
I was so stunned by the information that I coped the way I always did when I felt overwhelmed. I shoved food in my mouth. The words my dad said made me forget for a moment what was on my plate.
My taste buds soon screamed out a reminder. There was nothing left to do but chew very slowly, swallow it bit by bit, and try to think of pleasant things…chocolate chips and fudgy cookies, anything at all except my mouthful of mushrooms and eggplant and…what exactly was that bitter spice?
“Wow,” I finally said. “How come I never knew?”
“There was no need to worry you three children about a thing like that.” My dad picked up his water glass. “Those kinds of things are grown-up worries.”
“So Brad doesn’t know? Or Sam?”
“Oh, Sam might have noticed something, being the oldest. But he never asked.”
My mother watched me sadly. “I was so afraid that the three of you could somehow get shortchanged by the fact that I was so crazy worried. I hardly knew which way was up for a year after that. And I wanted your childhood filled with joy, not with the sense of absolute pure terror that I couldn’t shake.”
“Wow!” I was deeply shocked about my mother’s words. All of a sudden, the eggplant cooked by her with love didn’t taste that bad anymore. “You did a good job of keeping it a secret, Mom. I had no idea. Everything felt normal. I grew up thinking Springston was really kind of boring.”
She nodded, relieved that I hadn’t sensed the trouble all those years ago. “I would have killed for boring,” she told me and my dad.
“So, your mom, she just went overboard to try to keep things lively for you and Sam and Brad.” My father watched her proudly. “Every day I came home and you’d been to the zoo or to the park or you’d made some art project and were all covered in paint. Remember when you turned those shells into little forest creatures? I’ll never forget how they took over one whole counter in the kitchen.” He laughed. “I could hardly find a place to put down my coffee cup.”
“I made a whole family of raccoons,” I said. “The raccoons were the coolest.”
I smiled at my mother. Then I braved another bite of the steamed veggies because that would make her happy.
“So, what happened next?” I asked. “Did they just stop with all the threats once they knew you wouldn’t pay?” Right here was my chance to get an inside look at how the whole thing worked. And to learn a bit more about my crazy, loveable family.
My father hesitated. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple with those kinds of guys. They don’t just go away. They keep on showing up. These are guys who’ve gotten used to getting what they want.”
He glanced at my mother, not sure how much to say. As if I were still a child.
“They scare the hell out of you, that’s what the jokers do.” There was anger in my father’s voice. I could count on one hand the times I’d seen him angry.
“What else did they do?” I really had to know – both as a daughter and detective.
Still, I could see that it was something my dad was not inclined to share.
“All you need to know is that two can play their game,” he said. “When the lowlife fools came back, I was ready for them.”
I almost choked on a piece of steamed carrot.
“Did you call the cops?” I asked.
He waved the thought away. “Best to handle things my own way. That way I knew the job got done right and that my wife and kids were safe.”
Whoa. My father was a badass?
My mother winked at me. “Isn’t it a sexy image? Your father handling things his way.”
What could I say to that? I was almost startled into another bite of sweet potato.
She got up from the table and gave him three big kisses, then spooned more eggplant onto his plate. Then she turned to me. “It went on for a few months. I’ve never been so terrified. I’d watch your father leave after his morning coffee, and part of me had to wonder if he’d ever walk back in the door. I was smart enough to know that there were things he wasn’t saying. I knew enough to worry, but I knew that there was more.”
“No need to bother you with details,” he replied as he frowned down at the eggplant. “And it all worked out in the end. Now everybody knows you don’t mess around with Jack.”
My father was a badass indeed.
“Does that stuff still go on in Springston?” I asked. “How many people do these guys go after?”
“It’s always been a worry,” my dad said with a sigh. “Not for the bigger chains. The big chains have resources to fight back; the criminal element here doesn’t want to deal with that. It’s the smaller businesses that they go after hard.”
“Who are they exactly?” I spooned up some more veggies.
He paused. �
��Gangs and mafia, assorted miscreants,” he said. He looked me in the eye. “Now Charlie, there’s nothing to worry about. Springston’s still a great place. There’s no town in the world that doesn’t have its bad guys.” He gave me a small smile. “They best stay away from my girl. If they know what’s good for them, they won’t mess with my Charlie.”
If he only knew that his Charlie was the one who’d been assigned to catch the bad guys and to help see to it that they get hauled off to jail.
I reached for my water glass. “I’ll be careful, Dad.”
My father took a tiny bite of eggplant and a huge sip of water. “Yes, they love the mom and pop shops,” he said with disgust. “They love the diners and the cafés. They know there’s money at the restaurants when it’s time to close up for the day. People love to eat, so there’s likely to be some dough in those shops.” He smiled. “You get the joke? The dough to make the bread and the dough that’s…”
My mother put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Yes, Jack. We understand.” She frowned. “You haven’t touched your fruit. I sliced a nice pineapple. I cut up chom choms, too.”
I was afraid to ask, but she told me anyway.
“It’s a fruit from Vietnam, and they were on special at the farmers market. It tastes kind of like a grape, but sweeter. I bought some extra choms choms to decorate the house.”
Was that a joke?
“To decorate?” I asked.
“Oh Charlie, you should see them when they’re whole. They’re just precious. Kind of round and spikey. The name means ‘messy hair’. I’ll show you after dinner. Would you like some for your dresser?”
“That’s okay. I’m good.”
“Jack, have you thought of offering some new healthy options on the menu at the diner? I have so many ideas.”
I jumped in to save him. “So, the little cafés and…maybe doughnuts shops, those are the places that get hurt the most? There are so many new ones I’ve seen pop up in Springston.”
“You’re right. We should try them, Charlie,” my mother said eagerly.
My father smiled and nodded. “I’ve been pleased to see how Springston has developed. It’s quite the culinary scene. Of course, you still have to come to Jack’s to get the biggest and best burger in all of Massachusetts. And the finest apple pie.” He could afford to be excited for the other business owners. The parking lot at Jack’s was always full.