1 Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun (31 page)

He yelped.

One of these days she's going to love that dog to death with
those Arnold Schwarzenegger arms of hers. I was too tired to argue about the carrier. I grabbed Ralph's cage in one hand and the empty
dog carrier in the other. "Fine. Make sure he stays on your lap."

"Wait a minute," said Mama. "If that beast doesn't have to go in
a carrier, why should Catherine the Great suffer? She has claustrophobia, you know."

Since when do cats suffer from claustrophobia? "Mama, it's
only a fifteen-minute drive."

"She won't know that. Look at her. She's far more traumatized
than that..." She pointed to Mephisto. "... that mutt."

Frankly, neither Mephisto nor Catherine the Great appeared
anything close to traumatized. They both looked like they'd spent
the night at The Golden Door Spa. "Fine, but it's up to the two of
you to keep them separated and contained in the back seat. The
last thing I need is a dog and cat fight while I'm driving."

"Stand, stand and fight!" squawked Ralph. "Cymbeline, Act Five,
Scene Two."

Another county heard from. I raised his cage until we were eyeto-eye. "Don't you dare egg them on."

As it turned out, Mephisto and Catherine the Great behaved
fairly well throughout the ride home. They only occasionally
growled and hissed at each other. Too bad the same couldn't be said
for Mama and Lucille. They squabbled and bickered non-stop.

Shades of he-touched-me/did-not/did-too arguments between
a five-year-old and his seven-year-old brother flashed before my
eyes. In retrospect, I think Nick and Alex were better behaved on
their worst day than their grandmothers at their best. Relief surged
through me as I turned the Hyundai onto our street.

Until I pulled into my driveway.

"OMIGOD!" I STARED AT the moving van parked in my driveway.
"It's Saturday." The day Zachary Barnes was moving into the
apartment above the garage. The apartment I still hadn't gotten
around to emptying and cleaning.

"What's going on now?" asked Mama. She unlocked her seatbelt and wedged her head, shoulders, and half of Catherine the
Great between the two front bucket seats.

"Move over. I can't see," said Lucille. She shoved Mama back
and over to the side.

Mama jabbed Lucille with her shoulder. "Get your commie
pinko paws off me!"

Annoyed by the jostling, Catherine the Great took a swipe at
Mephisto. He bared his teeth and snapped at her. She jumped out
of Mama's arms and bounded into the front passenger seat, landing on top of Ralph's cage. Ralph beat his wings against the wire
mesh and let loose with a rapid-fire series of ear-piercing squawks.

"Who's that man with the police?" Lucille yelled over the din as
she pushed Mama aside and shoved her own torso between the
bucket seats. "Why is there a moving van parked in the driveway?"

My new tenant stood off to the side, clutching a cup of coffee.
He appeared to be having an extremely animated conversation
with the two cops who were supposed to be keeping an eye on my
property.

I maneuvered myself around Lucille and one by one, pried Catherine the Great's claws off the bars of Ralph's cage, trying my best to
hold each freed paw to prevent her from reattaching herself.

"He's renting the apartment above the garage," I told Lucille as
I passed Mama's cat back to her.

"The apartment that by rights should be mine," said Lucille,
"considering the exorbitant rent you're charging me. Extortion.
That's what it is. My son never would have let you get away with
taking advantage of me like this."

"Your son was the one who got my daughter into this mess,"
said Mama.

"Lies," said Lucille. "Nothing but lies."

I ignored her. When it came to Karl, Lucille lived in her own
private world of delusion. She should only know he'd tried to kill
her. And when that failed, how he stole her life's savings, killing
three innocent people along the way.

But as much as I itched to tell her, I wasn't that cruel. Let her
keep believing in Saint Karl-if Bolsheviks could believe in saints.
I wished I had the luxury of assuming my husband was the man I
thought he was.

"Oh, it's that handsome Zachary Barnes from the other night,"
said Mama, straining her neck for a better view. "If only I were a
few years younger..."

Lucille snorted.

Mephisto growled.

Catherine the Great yowled.

Ralph continued to squawk.

Zachary Barnes strode his angry Pierce Brosnan-George Clooney-Patrick Dempsey-Antonio Banderas good looks toward the
driver's side of my car. The police followed close behind him. I exited the Hyundai to meet them.

Lucille grunted her way out of the back seat and hobbled toward the house, her cane pounding the frozen earth with each labored step. As she passed us, Mephisto growled at the officers. Lucille glared at all three men but zeroed in on Zack. "Thiefl"

The officers turned to Zack. "Well?" said one, as Lucille doddered past them.

Zack opened his mouth to protest. "Look, I-"

"Ignore them." Mama, embracing Catherine the Great, rounded
the car to stand beside me. She gestured with a jut of her chin toward Lucille. "They're communists. You know how they are."

All three men turned their heads to watch Lucille huff and puff
her way up the back porch steps. "The dog, too?" asked one of the
officers.

"Of course," said Mama. "French bulldog, my patootie. That
dog's as Russian as the Kremlin."

I steered Mama toward the house. "Why don't you take Catherine the Great inside?"

"You may need me, dear."

About as much as I needed a migraine, sciatica, and a case of
hemorrhoids all at once.

The back door of the house slammed behind Lucille. Zack
transferred his attention to me. "For someone who was so worried
that I'd back out of our lease agreement, you sure provided a
strange welcoming committee. I arrived to find you not home and
some of Westfield's finest accusing me of criminal activity."

I flinched. The man was one very unhappy camper this morning. But could I blame him? "We sort of had another incident last
night."

"So I figured."

"And I sort of didn't get a chance to clean the apartment because of it."

From inside the closed car, Ralph continued to squawk. Even
though I'd placed the door of his cage against the seat back, he'd
somehow managed to rotate the cage enough to pick the lock and
escape. He loudly berated us from his perch on the steering wheel.

The cops leaned forward and stared through the windshield.
"I'll be damned," said the second officer. "A parrot!" He tapped on
the windshield with his fingernail. "Polly want a cracker?"

Ralph hopped onto the dash and pecked at him through the
glass. If it's one thing my Shakespeare-pontificating parrot hates,
it's being reminded he's only a parrot.

Zack stepped closer to me, until our toes nearly touched.
"Look, Anastasia, I don't care if you didn't get a chance to polish
the doorknobs, okay? I just need to get my stuff into the apartment or the movers are going to dump it all in the driveway and
take off."

"Doorknob polishing? Believe me, doorknob polishing is so low
on my list of priorities that you'd need a bulldozer to unearth it."

Mama pushed me aside and stepped between us. "Now, Zachary dear, don't twist your knickers. You'll give yourself a stroke.
Believe me, I know about these things. My late husband Seamus
O'Keefe, bless his dearly departed soul, died of a cerebral aneurysm. You're far too young and handsome to follow in his footsteps. Not that Seamus wasn't handsome, mind you, but you never
know if you're a ticking time bomb, as the doctors later told me-"

"Mama, please go inside."

"You know this man, Mrs. Pollack?" asked the officer who'd
questioned Mephisto's political leanings.

"Yes. He's renting the apartment above the garage." I turned to
Zack. "I'm sorry for the chaos. Please come inside and warm up."

Zack turned to the police. "You guys satisfied I'm not some serial killer?"

"Just doing our job," said the officer. He grabbed his partner by
the arm and headed down the driveway. "We'll be in the car if you
need us, Mrs. Pollack."

Zack called to the men sitting in the idling moving van. "You
can start unloading the truck, fellas. I'll be out in a minute."

"About time," said the driver.

Before leading Zack into the house, I climbed back into the
Hyundai and grabbed Ralph off the dashboard, tucking him under
my coat to keep him warm.

"Why the police surveillance?" asked Zack. "Exactly what happened?"

"Long story."

"Some awful man taped us up and stuffed us in the bathtub
last night," said Mama. "And he nearly killed Catherine the Great."

Zack looked at Mama as if she'd had one too many white Russians. "Catherine the Great died several hundred years ago," he
said.

"The cat," I told him. "That's her name. And the vet said that
creep only fed the animals enough cold syrup to put them to sleep,
Mama. Climb down from your drama queen podium."

"Really, Anastasia!" She stroked her cheek against Catherine
the Great's fur. "How would a deviant like that know how much
cold medicine is too much? And why would he even care? He
could have killed her. Poor sweet thing. And then to have to put up
with that vicious Marxist mongrel trying to attack her. It's all been
too much for her."

"Marxist mongrel? I think I'm going to need a scorecard," said
Zack.

"He belongs to my mother-in-law. She's the one who called
you a thief a minute ago. You didn't meet her the other night. She
and the Demon Dog were off sulking in her room."

"They're communists," said Mama.

Zack gave her an odd look, but addressed me, "Speaking of
thief, I take it your two-by-fours didn't do the job?"

"That sneaky Pete rang the bell," said Mama. "When I opened
the door, he stuck a huge gun in my face. Can you imagine?"

"The bastard wiped us out," I said. "Down to our last jar of
peanut butter and bag of cat food."

We entered the house, and I released Ralph from the confines
of my coat. He flew up to the curtain rod above the sink window.

"I didn't noticed the parrot before," said Zack.

"He was watching PBS in my bedroom. Ralph's a sucker for
anything starring Helen Mirren. Reminds him of my Great-aunt
Penelope."

"He has free reign of the house?"

"Not to worry," I assured him. "Ralph's housebroken"

"You're kidding! Is that even possible?"

"Ralph's a very unusual bird."

"And show the world what the bird hath done," squawked Ralph,
as if to prove my point. "As You Like It. Act Four, Scene One."

"I'll be damned. A Shakespeare-quoting parrot. I'd say that
qualifies as unusual."

"That's one word for it," said Mama. "If that bird-brained Penelope Periwinkle had spent half as much time finding a husband
as she did fawning over that damn bird, she wouldn't have died a
dried-up old spinster."

"Mama, I doubt Zachary is interested in your estimation of
certain branches of our family tree"

I filled the tea kettle and placed it on the stove. "I hope instant
is okay. Along with just about everything else that wasn't nailed
down, the thief helped himself to Mr. Coffee." At least Ricardo had
spared the pots and pans. I guess he had no use for eighteen-yearold dented Farberware and chipped Pyrex.

Nick and Alex barged into the kitchen. "Hey, Zack!" they both
called out.

"Why didn't you guys tell the cops outside that you know Mr.
Barnes?" I asked. "You invite him into the house when he's a
stranger and leave him at the mercy of the police once you know
who he is? Am I the only person who thinks this makes absolutely
no sense?"

"Huh?" asked Alex.

"What cops?" asked Nick.

"The ones watching the house. They were about to arrest him."

"Thought I was the burglar, come back to finish the job," said
Zack.