He plucked a leaf from one of the bushes. “My mom loved the smell of lilacs.”
Mama grabbed Stump’s arm with her good hand as the trio watched several enthusiastic dogs of various breeds teach a tall man how to throw a saliva-drenched tennis ball. Stump was both happy and sad. This park never would have existed were it not for his mother, and for her death.
“We better take Mama home,” Maria said while grabbing Stump’s hand. Then she turned to her mama. “Would it be okay if Stump and I go see Harry Potter this afternoon?”
Stump turned his head. He’d already told her that he’s seen the movie with James, so there was a pretty good chance she was actually thinking the same thing that had been going through his mind.
* * *
A few hours later, Stump pulled his numb arm from under Maria’s head, causing her to stir. Then, “Oh, my God,” she gasped. “It’s almost seven. Mama’s going to kill me.”
They jumped out of Stump’s bed and into their clothes and hurried to the truck. “What am I going to tell Mama?” she wondered out loud. “I’m supposed to call her when I’m going to be late. She’s going to know that we didn’t go to a movie.”
“You’re only off by an hour,” he said, rushing along.
“Only an hour? That may not be a lot to you because your dad lets you come and go, but Mama worries about me.”
Stump considered defending Myles, but that wouldn’t soothe Maria’s feelings. “Tell her it’s my fault.”
“I don’t want to blame you. I’ll just tell her the first theater was sold out so we went someplace else for a later movie.”
Stump nodded. Up ahead, at Cal-Vista, a familiar red Cadillac was about to pull out of the lot and onto the street. Stump zipped around it and rushed to the rear of the lot.
Almost instantly, Dixon backed alongside them and jumped out. “Where the hell’ve you two been?”
“That’s our business,” Stump said.
Dixon bobbed his head toward Maria. “Not when her worried mother comes knocking on my door and asking for my help.”
Maria sighed. “I don’t have time for this.” She kissed Stump on the cheek. “Call me later.”
“A movie, huh?” Dixon said to Stump. “Who you trying to fool, rich boy?”
Stump stepped back. “Leave me alone.”
“I knew you couldn’t be trusted. Now, I’ve got all the cards and I want you to quit seeing Maria.”
“I ain’t doing that.”
“The hell you aren’t. It’s either that or I’ll see to it you lose your job; then it’ll be hard to get another one. It’s up to you, rich boy.”
Stump scoffed and pushed Dixon’s hand aside. “As usual, you’re full of crap. I ain’t quitting and I ain’t gonna stop seeing Maria. I still know all your scams and I can find copies of that notebook anytime I want and send you to prison.”
“You’re in way over your head, rich boy.”
“Screw you, Dixon. If you hurt me or Maria or her mama or anybody else I care about, I already have a plan to take you down.” Stump climbed back in his truck. “Just remember, you have a lot more to lose than I do.”
Chapter Sixty-Six
While Stump pumped enough gas into the truck to bring it back to the point where it was when Myles left town, he felt guilty as hell over all the money he’d borrowed from Myles without ever telling him about it. What a butt-head.
Back home he parked carefully and checked the mailbox on his way inside. There, he discovered an envelope addressed to him from Inspect Enterprises. Inside the envelope, there were two sheets of paper, including a hand-written note: Stump, Sorry they wouldn’t let me knock off more. Geoff. Stump’s gut tightened. He’d forgotten all about the home inspector.
He flipped to the back page. Three hundred dollars? Damn it! He was hoping for a bigger discount. He threw the damn papers onto the floor. He shouldn’t have to pay a bill that came in so damn late, especially when the case was over and the power-hungry City Council wasn’t going to approve his plan anyway.
He clumped around the apartment for a few more minutes blaming and damning everybody, before he remembered who really screwed everything up. “Damn you, Dixon.”
* * *
Monday after school, still gloomy and ashamed for having spent money that didn’t belong to him, Stump made it to Cal-Vista on time by bike. It took his full shift to haul a shit-load of trash out of an abandoned apartment. As he threw remnants of somebody’s life into the bottom of the pit, it occurred to him that there were many decent people who lived on the verge of despair, yet they didn’t resort to stealing other people’s money as he had.
At the end of his shift, Stump and Maria met at the picnic tables. Almost instantly Myles called to say he and his mother were back from Oklahoma and he needed Stump to help unload the U-Haul truck.
Before leaving, Stump told Maria why it was important for him and Myles to take Grandma Pauline in. “She used to teach History and Current Events in a high school. But now, her brain is slipping.”
“Is she crazy?” Maria asked.
“Not crazy. It’s the early stages of dementia. Myles said she’s usually okay in the mornings. But as the day moves along she forgets simple things, like what day it is, or to take her meds. Sometimes they call it Sundown Syndrome.”
“But how are you going to help her and work and still see me?”
“We’ll take shifts. Myles hired another lady to stay with her in the daytime and he’ll stay with her until I’m done working, then I’ll watch her while Myles goes to his nightly meetings.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“I just have to do a little of it. I can still see you plenty.”
Maria kissed his cheek. “She’s lucky to have you. You know that?”
The ride home flew until Stump reached the stretch in the river where two weeks earlier he’d nearly lost his life. He thought about his mom and Grandma Pauline. They didn’t deserve their fates. Neither did Maria’s mama or the struggling tenants at Cal-Vista. Meanwhile other people were beneficiaries of good fortune. For instance, Dixon drove a flashy Caddie around that he certainly didn’t deserve and Stump had a trust worth several million. It made him realize that Myles was right about his earning the money for his own car.
A little later when Stump’s apartment building came into view there was a mid-sized U-Haul truck at the back of the lot. He looked forward to seeing Grandma Pauline again.
Inside the apartment, Myles met him almost instantly with a finger pressed to his lips. “Shhh. She’s taking a nap.” He motioned for Stump to join him in the dining room.
“Is she okay?”
“I didn’t realize how often she takes side trips to Looneyville,” Myles said. “Last night, in our motel room, she kept thinking we were in somebody else’s apartment.”
The compassion in Myles’s tone reminded Stump of the days following the fire, when Stump’s mother died and Myles wanted to adopt him. Myles blew out a deep breath. “I’m exhausted and need a quick shower.”
“Go ahead. I’ll cover you.”
After Myles slipped into the bathroom, Stump heated some canned chili and settled into their recliner for a little TV.
“What smells so good?”
“Grandma Pauline!” Stump rose and hugged Myles’s mother. “How are you?”
“I’m hungry,” she said. “Who are you?”
“Don’t you remember me? I’m Stump. We’ve met before.”
She stared at him and said, “Oh, yeah. I thought you looked familiar.” She pointed toward her temple. “I keep forgetting. I used to be a teacher, you know?”
“History and Current Events. Right?”
“Were you one of my students?”
By that time, Myles had gotten out of the shower and was rustling around in his room. Grandma Pauline tilted her head. “Where’s my daughter?”
“Aunt Ellen’s not here,” Stump said. “We’re in California. She lives in North Carolina.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s right. She’s selfish, never visits or calls. I have a good mind to pull a Ruby on her.”
“A Ruby? The red stone?”
Grandma Pauline scrunched her face. “Not a stone. The man. Jack Ruby.”
“Who’s Jack Ruby?”
She shook her head. “Don’t you kids remember anything I teach you? We discussed this in class last month.”
“But we’re not in school. You’re retired now.”
She stopped and studied Stump’s face. “Oh, yeah. Sometimes I forget. The gangsters hired him, you know.”
Ruby sounded interesting, but it would be easier to learn about the guy online. Stump made a note in his phone to Google Jack Ruby when he had a breather.
“You got one of those portable phones, huh? What will they think of next?”
Stump let her look at it. “It’s an iPhone. I just made a note in it.”
“A note in the phone? Did you know we used to have a party line?”
“A phone just for parties?” Stump asked.
“We shared it with the Wynns and those other people up the road. I forget their name, but their kids hogged the lines.”
Sounded weird. Stump made a note to look up party lines when he had a chance.
“I needed that,” Myles said, returning to the action. “Everybody okay in here?”
“They remodeled.” Grandma Pauline said before she faced Stump. “Students aren’t allowed in the teacher’s lounge you know.”
Stump and Myles exchanged glances.
“I’m Stump, Grandma. This is our apartment.”
She turned to Myles. “Did you tell him I caught you drinking beer?”
Myles grinned and said to Stump, “I was eighteen. Boys will be boys.” He turned to his mother. “If we give you some chili, will you be okay while Stump helps me bring in your things?”
“Sure. You boys go ahead. I’ll be fine.”
Outside, Stump spoke first. “I’m glad you brought her here. She needs us.”
“She’s on again, off again. I’m just hoping that all this moving around doesn’t make her worse.” Myles opened the back end of the U-Haul. He turned his head and then back. “Did you wash my truck?”
A chill raced up Stump’s back. He wished he hadn’t taken advantage of Myles. Maybe he could come clean—at least partly. “I did something I shouldn’t have, so I wanted to do something nice for you—as an apology.”
“Oh, really?”
“I borrowed some money from our checking account.”
“For what?”
Stump grabbed a box of Grandma Pauline’s belongings from the storage area. “I know it’s stupid, but Dixon gave Maria a bracelet, which made me look bad, so I had to buy her something too. I just got carried away.”
Myles shook his head. “Carried away? Is that what you call it? I call it stealing.”
“I wasn’t stealing it. I was just borrowing it. It’s my account, too.”
“But you already spent all the money you put in there. The rest was my money. Just like our apartment. You’re welcome to use it, but you don’t own it.”
“Well, if I’m welcome to use it, that’s what I was doing with the money. Using it until I could pay it back.”
Myles’s head bobbed back in mocked surprise. “Exactly when and how were you going to pay it back? You haven’t even paid me for your tires yet. How much did you take?”
“After I pay Geoff Harrington, who charged me way more than you said he would, there’s about four hundred left.”
Myles eyes ballooned. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Stump. That means you took hundreds that didn’t belong to you, and you had to drive my truck without permission or a driver’s license to get it cleaned. What the hell were you thinking?”
“That’s why I wanted to do something nice for you. You already told me I could take my driving test in a few days, so I just jumped the gun a little bit.”
Myles shook his head. “That was stupid. You know that? You’re lucky you didn’t have an accident.”
“This is your fault too, you know.”
“How the hell do you figure that?”
“If you’d let me use my trust money, we wouldn’t have these misunderstandings.”
“It’s not a misunderstanding, Stump. It’s dishonest. There have to be some consequences this time.”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Delores wouldn’t ordinarily visit a school without an appointment, but the lure of a cupcake caper with Carlton Fayes was too intriguing to get bogged down in formalities. This time, dressed in street clothes, she would simply tell Carlton she had just finished some other police work nearby and had some news for him.
She entered the lot, bypassed the bike rack and the short-term parking area, and eased her Audi into the larger section where there was a mish-mash of smaller-sized vehicles, including an unpretentious pick-up that she assumed to be Carlton’s. The spot next to it was open.
She reached across her seat and grabbed a sheet of yellow construction paper on which she’d pasted a collage of cupcake pictures along with a few comments and facts about the treats. She popped open her trunk and stashed her gun before taking another look at the silly poster she’d made. Nobody else would get a kick out of it, but Carlton probably would.
She rang the entrance buzzer, checked in and was halfway to the art room when the final bell went off. In a split second, the frenzied activity in the hallway was as if she were inside a giant beehive that had just been invaded. She grinned. All kids loved the end of the school day. She hadn’t been this enthusiastic in weeks.
Carlton was with two ten-year-old girls at the back of his classroom straightening a few pieces of art on the wall when she arrived. She tucked her silly homemade poster behind her back and walked up behind him. “American Cookery,” she said in one of the few indoor voices she’d heard in the last couple minutes.
Carlton and the girls turned around.
Delores held up her yellow poster and read some of the script she’d added at the bottom. “The first mention of cupcakes was in 1796 in a book called American Cookery. They got their name because they were made in small individual pottery cups about the size of a teacup.”
Carlton grinned, “Detective Sanchez. I almost didn’t recognize you without your uniform.” He reached for her poster and looked it over. He turned to the students. “I’m sorry girls, but this is a policewoman and I need to speak with her, now.”
One girl giggled. The other looked at Delores suspiciously. They both seemed to sense that she had a little more than ordinary police work on her mind. Delores smiled and watched them leave before she gestured to her poster. “Icing had already been around for nearly 30 years. Do I get an A?”
Carlton shook his head. “Not quite.” He strutted to his desk, grabbed a big red marker from his drawer and scrawled a giant A+ in the upper corner. “Anybody who shows creativity around here gets the highest grade possible.”
Delores raised both hands to her heart in a playful gesture of pride. “I’m sorry I didn’t call ahead, but I had a few things to talk to you about.”
“No problem. I was getting ready to call you too, but I need to follow up with Mrs. Carbone in the cafeteria. If you have time, we can go see if she’s still in.”
Delores would have preferred to close the door and continue their private chat, but that would be too forward for the moment. “Sure. I can tell you about a store that I found.”
“But we can’t leave without finishing your project.” He handed her the yellow poster. “Put your name in the lower corner. It’s going on the wall.”
“Really?” Delores understood why the students were so fond of Mr. Fayes. He made the little things seem fun. She reached in her purse for a pen. “Should I be Delores Sanchez, or Detective Sanchez?”
“How ’bout both? Detective Delores Sanchez.”
They tacked her poster to the back wall, among the others, and made their way toward the cafeteria. If it weren’t t
aboo on a couple of levels, the giddy schoolgirl inside her would have liked holding the teacher’s hand.
At the cafeteria, Mrs. Carbone, a slim, slightly greying woman, was on her way out. “Mrs. Carbone,” he said, “I’d like you to meet Detective Delores Sanchez.” He turned toward Delores. “We could never get by around here without Mrs. Carbone.”
“I assume you’re here about the cupcake wars,” Mrs. Carbone said in a matter-of-fact tone. “You know that boys like to show off. They’ll make frosting balls and toss them around. Who’s going to clean up their messes?”
Carlton put his hands to his mouth in mock surprise. “Why, Mrs. Carbone, don’t you know that all of our students are perfect little angels?”
“Yeah, right. You do realize that I’ll be checked out and the janitor isn’t going to want to clean up a big mess?” She turned toward Delores and flipped a thumb toward Carlton. “He already does more than his fair share around here.”
Delores grinned. “I figured as much. I’ll help him. He’s doing all this for me anyway.”
“All right then, if you two are willing to take responsibility, all we gotta do is get the cupcakes. How many kids you expecting?”
Delores and Carlton traded glances. “Twelve to twenty,” he said, apparently guessing.
“Okay, I’ll need enough ingredients to make three dozen.” She turned to Delores. “Nice to meet you,” she said and walked away.
Carlton faced Delores. “If it wasn’t for a couple tiny problems, we could go get those ingredients right now.”
“What problems? Maybe I can help.”
“First, I rode my bicycle today.”
She should have guessed. “I could drive. My car is like a giant purse but I could move a few more things into the trunk.”
“I wish that was all, but I’m embarrassed to say I don’t have any money until my check clears in a couple days.”
Delores snickered, “I’d offer to advance the money, but I’m in the same darn boat. Doesn’t the school have a petty cash account we could use?”
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