Accessory to Murder (8 page)

“Mom? Is that you in my kitchen?”

Of course it was. The kitchen was richly scented with warm butter, hot sugar—and cigarette smoke.

Those damn cigarettes. Josie didn't want Amelia coming home to a house that stank of her grandmother's stale nicotine.

She could feel the fury rising in her. Why did you take up such a smelly, stupid habit, Mom? Josie wanted to yell. What kind of example is this for your granddaughter? And if you have to smoke, why don't you do it in your own house, instead of stinking up mine?

Josie bit back the harsh words. Jane gave up cigarettes after her divorce because she couldn't afford them anymore. Instead, she spent the money on new clothes for Josie. Mom gave up her pleasure for me, Josie thought. She was entitled to smoke now. Maybe Alyce was right: If I ignore it, it will go away.

“Kitchen smells good, Mom,” she said. “You making a gooey butter cake?”

Josie heard a low growl that could be either a greeting or a warning. Mom's mood was as bad as hers.

Josie bumped the kitchen door with her hip and humped a cooler full of double-cut pork chops and organic lettuce onto the sink. When she mystery-shopped food stores, Josie didn't leave perishables baking in the backseat. She brought her cooler.

She didn't need to put these chops in the freezer. Her mother could have flash cooked them with one glare. She was mad about something.

Josie tried to defuse the situation with chitchat. “I've been mystery-shopping supermarkets,” she said to her mother's back. “I've got some beautiful chops. Want one?”

Jane was wiping the kitchen table with short, angry strokes. Her back was rigid with tension. Josie could feel the anger radiating from her.

“No,” Jane said. That word came down like a karate chop.

Oh, boy. Mom was seething. Yet she'd come downstairs to bake Josie and Amelia a delicious dessert. That was Mom: slapping Josie with her anger one moment, soothing her the next. Josie loved her mother, but she could never understand her.

Jane pulled the gooey butter cake out of the oven with a dish towel and slammed it on the cooling rack. The pan bounced.

Stay calm, Josie thought. Don't start anything. Wait for her to tell you what's wrong.

Josie crammed the lettuce in the fridge and shut the door. One look from her mother would wilt the tender organic leaves. She started freezer wrapping the chops.

Jane banged metal mixing bowls and spoons in the sink.

“So, Mom, what brings you to my kitchen this afternoon? Not that I object to baking and entering.”

Jane wiped her hands on a dish towel. “I wanted to talk to you before your daughter came home.” She stood at the sink with her hands on her hips, looking like a bulldog in a pink pantsuit and sensible shoes. A fierce gray-helmet-haired bulldog with a smudge of powdered sugar on her nose.

Here it comes, Josie thought. Mount Mom is about to explode.

“Josie Marcus, I can't believe you picked up a plumber!” Jane said. “In front of your own daughter, too. What's wrong with Mr. Ansen?”

“He's old, fat, and married,” Josie said. She could feel her good resolutions going down the drain with the half-melted ice from the cooler.

“You don't have to get smart with me, young woman. You know what I mean,” Jane said. “Why didn't you call Mr. Ansen? He's been our plumber for forty years.”

Josie was in no mood for her mother's bullying. Not after Jane had smoked in her home—again. Not after she'd dumped her ashtray down the toilet. That had cost Josie a bundle. Mike didn't give Josie a price break on the after-hours plumbing call, date or not.

Add the plumbing bill to her worries about Alyce, her rotten boss, Harry, and the prospect of twenty-four Greta Burgers, and Josie quickly reached her flash point. “You can call him, Mom, next time you stop up
your
toilet with
your
cigarette butts. This is my home. Where I don't permit smoking because it's hazardous to your granddaughter's health.”

Jane had the grace to look embarrassed. “I did that? I stopped up your toilet? I couldn't have.”

“Yes, you did. The cigarettes had your lipstick on them. My date with Mike is your fault. If you hadn't stopped up my john with your cigarettes, I wouldn't have had to call a plumber. And what's wrong with dating a plumber? Do you know what he charges?”

“Josie, that's not why you're going out with him, is it—because you can't afford the plumbing bill? I'll pay it.”

“Good,” Josie said. “I'll send it to you.”

Jane looked surprised. She'd expected Josie to be too proud to take money from her mother.

“And no, Mom, I'm not a hooker paying my bills with sex.”

Jane turned red as a jar of Harvard beets. “Josie, I never meant to imply such a thing. How can you even say that?”

“How could you even say it?” Josie said. “Honestly, Mom, this is too much. Mike isn't some useless paper pusher. He actually knows how to do something. I find that attractive in a man.” His long legs and good buns weren't bad, either, Josie thought, but that didn't sound nearly so noble.

“There's nothing wrong with someone else dating a plumber,” Jane said. “But not my daughter. I expect better for you. Your father was a professional man, a lawyer.”

“Who left us in the lurch,” Josie said.

The words slipped out. As soon as she said them, Josie knew she'd gone too far. Jane looked like she'd been punched.

“I'm sorry, Mom. I shouldn't have said that. GBH.” That was their family code for “Great Big Hug.” Whenever anyone said “GBH,” a hug was mandatory.

Jane stood there stiffly, her bulldog jaw thrust out stubbornly. She didn't move.

“You have to, Mom. It's the family law.” Josie wrapped her arms around her mother, inhaling her Estee Lauder bath powder. She saw Jane's hair was thinning at the crown and carefully combed over. That bald little spot never failed to touch Josie's heart. Her indomitable mother was no longer young.

Poor Jane was meant for a genteel clubwoman's life in Ladue. But she'd been abandoned by her husband, stuck with an unruly daughter, and banished to blue-collar Maplewood. Instead of going to Junior League luncheons, Jane had spent the best years of her life at a grindingly dull job. She couldn't afford cigarettes, much less Lilly Pulitzer dresses and Pappagallo shoes. Josie's money worries were a picnic in the park compared with what her mother had faced.

“I am so sorry, Mom.” Jane felt rigid as a department store mannequin. “I was out of line.”

“I just want to find the right man for you,” Jane said, sniffling. “I don't want you dating someone who handles sewage. You need a nice man with a manicure.” She was crying now, wiping her eyes with a dish towel.

Josie hated when her mother cried. She hated Jane's clumsy attempts at matchmaking even more.

“I don't need a man,” Josie said.

“Amelia needs a father,” Jane said. “I saw an article that girls who have fathers living with them are less likely to get pregnant out of wedlock.”

Ouch. Mom's turn for a low blow.

“Amelia won't get pregnant,” Josie said. “When she turns thirteen, I'm keeping her in a stone tower with a locked door and a dragon.” Josie went back to wrapping pork chops.

“Josie, be serious.”

“I am serious, Mom. I'm renting the old Compton Heights water tower, the one at Grand and I-44. It's a landmark. Looks like a castle. The kid will appreciate the architecture. Good view, too.”

“I've arranged a blind date for you,” Jane said.

“You what?” Josie dropped a pork chop. It landed on the floor.

“Blind dates are the best way to meet eligible men. Much safer than the Internet. Granby Hicks is a lawyer, Josie. He's smart and handsome. I've seen him. He's so good-looking, he takes your breath away.”

“So does emphysema,” Josie said. She picked up the chop and washed it off. The floor was clean. She'd spilled pasta water on it last night.

“He works at Alyce's husband's law firm.”

“Another reason to say no.”

“At least go out with him once,” Jane said.

“No,” Josie said, wrapping the last chop and stashing it in the freezer. The blast of cold air steadied her resolve. She had to remain firm. She'd had enough of Jane's matchmaking. Her mother was a geek magnet. She'd fixed Josie up with one loser after another. At least, that's what Josie called them. Jane said they were good providers. Her mother's idea of a good provider was a CPA who clipped grocery coupons and had a penny jar on his dresser. As long as he wore a white shirt to work, Jane considered him a “professional man.”

“Last time you fixed me up with that tax accountant who took me out for coffee at a hospital cafeteria. He told me it was cheaper than Starbucks. He was cheaper than Scrooge McDuck.”

“Missouri Baptist is one of the finest hospitals in the country,” Jane said. “It's on all the top-ten lists.”

“It's on the bottom of my list for romantic dates,” Josie said. “Even if I did look pretty hot in the glow of the aluminum walkers.”

“Granby isn't like that. He wants to take you to dinner at Tony's, the finest restaurant in St. Louis. You can meet him at the restaurant. How safe is that? Any day. You can even go out with him tonight. Just name the time.”

“No,” Josie said.

“But I've already made the arrangements,” Jane said.

“Then you'll have to unmake them, Mom. If it embarrasses you, too bad.”

“Josie! You can't do this to me,” Jane said.

“I just did.” Josie realized she sounded exactly like Horrible Harry.

“I know you'll come to your senses,” her mother said. “I won't call Granby and tell him that the date's off. You still have time to change your mind.”

“I'll change my sex first,” Josie said. “I won't go on another of your rotten blind dates, and that's that.”

“Fine! Ruin your life. Again.” Her mother slammed the kitchen door so hard, the glass rattled.

Josie paced her kitchen, muttering to herself. “Since when am I too good to go out with a man who works for a living? I'm supposed to date some jerky lawyer who bills five hundred an hour every time he picks up his phone? Ha. No wonder he can afford Tony's. A plumber can't. A plumber makes an honest living.”

Josie thumbed through the thick stack of bills in the napkin holder on the kitchen counter, and took out Mike's plumbing bill. Then she went out on the front porch and shoved it through the mail slot in her mother's door. Take that, Mom, she thought. She shivered in the December wind. It was cold out here, even with the pale winter sun shining.

Josie suspected things were plenty warm in her mother's flat. Jane, who loved the social niceties, would suffer tortures trying to undo the blind date she'd arranged.

Too bad, she thought. Mom had to learn. Matchmaking was another bad habit Jane had developed recently. Maybe Josie couldn't make her mother quit smoking, but she could do something about those blind dates.

They were going to stop. Right now.

Josie looked at her ninth Greta Burger of the day, and her stomach slid unpleasantly. She knew the burger would be awful. Greta Burgers were always awful. But they were bad in different ways. Each Greta Burger outlet (Josie wouldn't call them restaurants) found a new way to ruin the loathsome lumps.

The first one was gray and dry as fried concrete.

The second was so greasy it skidded off the bun.

The third had a lacy frill of fried gunk around the edge of the patty.

The fourth was mostly gristle. It was like chewing rubber bands.

The fifth was the worst so far. It had been fried on the same grill as a Fisherman's Find, and the cook hadn't cleaned the grill between orders. The only thing more disgusting than a Greta Burger was a Greta fish sandwich. The fishy burger had sent her stomach into full rebellion. Josie had to take a big gulp from the bottle of Maalox she kept in her glove compartment before her next stop.

The sixth Greta Burger was cold.

The seventh burned her mouth.

The eighth was almost edible, if she covered it in ketchup.

Now she was looking at the ninth. A little black thing stuck up out of the burger. Was it a human hair, a roach leg, or an odd piece of animal innards? Any choice was wretched. She knew better than to take it back to the counter and complain. The next Greta Burger would be worse, and the cook would probably spit on it, besides.

Maybe Josie could lie on her report just this one time and say she'd tasted it. No one would ever know. I'd know, she thought. I can't do it. I have my standards.

She looked at the grubby ground beef again. That awful thing was still sticking out of the middle.

Just cover it with the bun and take a bite out of the edge, she told herself. One bite. That's all. There was an ominous rumbling deep in her gut. Josie's stomach was sending an ultimatum. She'd better act quickly—or it would.

“I've got to do this,” she told herself. “If I don't, Harry will win.”

She nibbled a tiny piece off of one side, like a frightened mouse. The burger didn't taste half-bad, and that worried Josie. Was she starting to like Greta Burgers? Would she turn into one of the chain's strange, misshapen regulars—the shuffling old men, the odd women wearing dresses with dragging hems, the kids with spiked hair and homemade tattoos? Would she be one of the customers at the counter who mumbled to themselves, or put in their teeth before chomping a Greta delight?

Josie's gut shifted again, but she gulped the gray morsel. She'd officially sampled her ninth burger. The worst was over. She lifted the bun and the black thing
sproing
ed up again. She poked it with a plastic fork. It wasn't a hair or an insect part. It was a tubular bit of meat, possibly a vein. Josie's stomach hip-hopped. She dumped the burger in the trash, then fled to her car.

As she plopped down in the seat, she noticed pink and red spots on her T-shirt. The red was ketchup. The pink must be Maalox. Stains might actually improve this outfit. She wore her beat-up yard clothes and holey tennies for this assignment. She was still dressed better than ninety percent of the clientele.

Nine Greta Burgers down, fifteen more to go. At that thought, Josie's stomach made a seismic shift. She was swallowing a healthy swig of Maalox when her cell phone rang.

“Josie!” How could Alyce pack so much panic in one word?

“What's wrong?” Josie said.

“I called Jake's office an hour ago and his secretary, Virginia, said he was unavailable.”

That sounded like Jake, Josie thought. Unavailable for his own wife. A car horn was ranting in the Greta Burger parking lot. Josie thought she heard Alyce say, “Virginia said he was talking to the police. They're in his office.”

Josie rolled up her window and shut out some of the sound. Maybe she'd heard wrong. “The police are in his office?”

“The same two detectives who talked to me,” Alyce said. “Virginia told me their names. I left a message for Jake to call me as soon as they finished.”

“It's probably nothing, Alyce. What did Jake say?”

“He didn't. They're still talking to him. Something's wrong.”

This time, Josie couldn't deny it. “Alyce, stay there. I'll drive out to your home. You shouldn't be alone.”

“I'll be OK. You have to pick up Amelia at school.”

“Mom can pick her up,” Josie said. “She owes me big-time. Listen, Alyce, you may want to call the Wood Winds guardhouse and tell them I'm coming.”

“Why? Most of the guards know you.”

“I've been mystery-shopping Greta Burgers. I'm wearing my oldest clothes.”

For the first time in days, Alyce laughed. The sound was a little wobbly, but the laughter was genuine. “Don't worry, Josie. The guards will think you're very rich.”

“I'll be right out,” Josie said. “I promise. I'm twenty minutes away.”

Josie didn't keep her promise. She fought the traffic for nearly an hour. The highway department must have held a special meeting to create roadway obstacles. There was construction on one street, broken traffic lights on another, and sweeper trucks lumbering in the so-called fast lane on the interstate.

She wanted to call Alyce and see how she was, but cars were darting in and out, speeding up and slamming on their brakes for no reason. She had to stay alert.

Josie didn't think she'd ever make it to Wood Winds. As Alyce predicted, the guard waved her through without question. Once the subdivision gate opened, the sun seemed warmer and breezes more gentle. Birds trilled. The dark clouds fled. Industrious work crews trimmed hedges and filled potholes. Heaven forbid that Wood Winds residents should feel a bump in the road.

Unfortunately, this magic circle of peace and protection didn't cover Alyce. When she opened her door, Alyce looked so woebegone, Josie immediately took her into her arms. Alyce wept on her shoulder. Josie wasn't used to seeing her formidable friend so helpless. Nothing simmered or sizzled on the stove. The oven was cold. Alyce was too upset to cook.

This was serious.

Josie let her cry for a bit, then said, “I'll make us some coffee.”

“No!” Alyce said. “I mean, I'll make the coffee. You relax. I have cranberry muffins in the freezer I can warm up.”

Josie realized she couldn't work Alyce's coffeemaker, anyway. The complicated German machine needed a learner's permit. She watched Alyce grind the beans in a screechy gadget Josie would throw against the wall on a hungover morning. Alyce used a special scoop to calibrate the fresh-ground coffee, carefully leveling it off. No heaping spoons for this pot. Germans demanded precision.

“Where's little Justin?” Josie said.

“Upstairs, taking his afternoon nap. I'm glad he's managed to sleep through my waterworks. You don't need both of us crying.”

Alyce warmed the muffins in the microwave and lined a wicker basket with a yellow napkin. These homey tasks seemed to give her strength. For the first time, Josie thought she understood why someone might enjoy the mysterious and messy business of cooking.

By the time Alyce poured the coffee into thin china cups and set the cream and sugar on the table, she was a different woman. She sugared her coffee and squared her shoulders, ready to face the problem.

“I'm sorry I cried like that. But I'd just gotten off the phone with Jake.”

“What did he say? What happened?”

“He says it was no big deal,” Alyce said. “He's lying. I can tell by his voice.”

And you've heard him lie before, Josie thought, but she kept her mouth shut. Well, it wasn't totally shut. She was stuffing it with a cranberry muffin. It soothed her insulted stomach better than Maalox.

“Did his secretary give you any hints about what happened?” Josie asked.

“Virginia? She won't tell me anything. I'm the boss's wife. No one at Jake's office will tell me anything serious. And I can't ask. It's too chancy. It's bad enough I demanded to speak to Jake. I'm hoping Virginia won't spread that around the office. If I ask the wrong question or give any sign that something is off, it could stall Jake's career. His firm hates any hint of scandal. It's conservative, even for St. Louis.”

Alyce had eaten almost half a muffin without reducing it to a heap of crumbs. She was definitely better.

Josie took a sip of coffee. She had to admit it was better than the Folgers she made in her Mr. Coffee. “The police visit could be nothing, Alyce. You don't know.”

“I do know. I have a good sense of things, Josie. Don't tell me to deny it.”

Josie didn't. Alyce had known her husband was headed for trouble long before anyone else. She had a sixth sense that the homicide detectives were interested in Jake.

But why? Corporate lawyers committed neat, clean crimes with computers. They didn't gun down women in parking lots. Besides, Jake didn't look anything like the carjacker the witnesses saw. What was going on?

Alyce needed answers, but she had no way to get them.

Josie knew what she had to do. It wouldn't be pleasant, but she'd already faced nine Greta Burgers. Nothing could be worse.

“Alyce, you helped me when I was in trouble. Now it's my turn. I can talk to someone at your husband's firm. I know one of the lawyers, Granby Hicks.”

“You do?” Alyce looked surprised. “You never mentioned Granby before. How did you meet him?”

“I haven't—yet. My mother wants to fix me up on a blind date.”

“I knew you'd never talked to Granby, or you wouldn't volunteer to go out with him. I can't let you do this. I got stuck next to him at too many office parties. He's a horror show.”

“What's wrong? Is he a hound or a perv?” Josie asked.

“No, but you'll wish he was.”

“It's only dinner,” Josie said.

“It's your life. Don't waste it on Granby.”

“Alyce, I just ate nine Greta Burgers. I can stomach one lawyer, especially if we go to a nice restaurant. Besides, he wants to take me to Tony's.”

“Don't do it. It's not worth it.”

“Dinner at Tony's will be a piece of cake,” Josie said, finishing the last bite of her muffin. “But I dread what my mother's going to make me do.”

“What's that?” Alyce said.

“Eat crow,” Josie said.