Nothing but Trouble (6 page)

“Don’t say anything
 
—it’s the least I can do.”

“I’ll pay you back.”

“Don’t you dare.” PJ paid for her groceries and followed Trudi from the store.

The sun had crested the lake, fingers of gold gilding the tops of the cars in the parking lot, turning the tar to onyx. A family of ducks waddled across the lot. The scent of freshly mowed lawn lazed out into the breeze.

Trudi one-armed her around the neck. “You look great, by the way. The old PJ, only better.”

PJ let those words syrup through her, slow and sweet, as she pulled up to Connie’s house and wrangled the two bags of gro
ceries out of the car. She waved to the postman approaching Connie’s box in his little truck. One arm hung out the window and he waved back. He looked like he should be slinging ale in some greasy pub rather than delivering the mail, with his combed-back dark hair and the well-muscled arm that PJ noticed as he gathered up the mail.

The last mailman she remembered had been about eighty-five and went by the name Oscar. As in . . . Grouch.

“You new here?” he asked as he handed her the mail.

“Yes . . . and no.”

“Name’s Colin.” Then he winked and pulled away.

She lifted her hand in a wave, then sifted through the stack of bills and magazines, walking across the long, soft grass to the front porch. The sun kissed her shoulders, and with the birds chirruping in the oak hovering over the side of the house, she could feel the beach wooing her.

Or rather, a trip to her mother’s.

Only the hum of the refrigerator cut through the quiet of the house. PJ was putting away the ice cream when she heard shouting from somewhere beyond the family room. Russian-ish shouting.

She rushed to Connie’s home office, a room outfitted for a contemporary Connie, with a mahogany desk, rich red walls, a leather sofa, and a sleek wide-screened laptop computer atop the L-shaped desk. It smelled of power. Of smarts. Of money.

“What are you doing?” She found Sergei’s parents leaning over Connie’s laptop, Boris gesturing at the screen. Vera clamped his arm, clearly in an effort to calm him.

“What?” PJ scrolled for the equivalent in Russian.
“Shto? Shto?”

Please, don’t let them have crashed the computer.
She circled the desk and spied a Russian site. From the layout, it looked like an auction page.

“What are you buying?”

Boris stood, slamming the desk chair back on its rollers, and brushed past her, raving.

Her Russian wasn’t as good as she hoped, because PJ netted absolutely nothing from the barrage spilling forth. Which was probably good because she remembered hearing something about Russians having more swear words than Americans.

“What?” She schooled her voice low and calm, like she had when talking to an irate German Shepherd during the short-lived days of her paper route.

Vera looked at her and began to explain.

PJ recognized a less than helpful “gift, Ukraine, Sergei.”

Boris, however, had already tugged out his Russian-English dictionary and was paging through it. A tight hush fell between them. PJ wondered if this might have been how the White House felt during the Bay of Pigs.

Then Boris ran his finger down the page, stopped, looked up at PJ, and grinned.
“Keed.”

What?

He looked at Vera and nodded.
“Keed.”

Kid?
They were trying to buy a kid?

“I think you should stay off the Internet.” PJ reached over and closed the screen.

Boris’s smile faded.

Yes, those were probably curse words PJ heard on her way out of the room.

* * *

PJ had just turned eight the first time she left home. She remembered the crisp air redolent with decaying loam, pumpkins with saggy eyes peering out from doorsteps, and cornstalks hung from front porches, tied with baling twine. Auburn leaves crunched under her feet, and a slight northern wind bullied the cowboy hat she’d pulled over her jacket hood as she hustled down the road, kicking stones before her with red galoshes. She balanced a stick over her shoulder, and a handkerchief tied to the end held a soggy peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich and a few stolen peanut butter cookies. Enough to get her through the night, during which a wagon train headed west would find her and collect her for their journey to the Oregon Trail and the Little House on the Prairie. And should they happen to run into any renegade outlaws, she knew just how to handle them
 
—with her six-gun cap shooter tied to her leg.

PJ traced her first escape route as she drove toward her mother’s home, remembering how big the hill had seemed, how cold and ominous the pond, dotted with shiny oak leaves. She’d reached the railroad tracks crossing Chapel Hills when her father pulled up in his ’85 Jaguar, a sleek green lizard, rolled down the window, and stuck his elbow out. He looked regal with his thick black hair, those rich green eyes, a grey worsted wool suit against a black tie. “It’s gonna get cold, PJ,” he said. “And your mother has stew on.”

PJ still made a face, even in her memories.

He had laughed. “All good cowgirls eat stew.”

PJ remembered the way she crawled into the car, sliding on the sleek leather seats, smelling his cologne. He wouldn’t be
home long
 
—probably had a meeting to attend somewhere
 
—yet for that moment, he’d been her champion.

She still missed him most in the fall. “Your cowgirl finally left town, Daddy.”

Pulling up to the house, PJ let her VW idle in the driveway, noting the differences in the colonial. The basketball hoop had vanished, along with the cherry tree in the front yard. The evergreens loomed dark green and shaggy along the side of the property
 
—at least they blocked the view of the Haugens’ modern monstrosity, as her mother called it. Art deco
 
—giant glass blocks on end or even on their points. PJ always wondered what it might be like to live in that crystal palace, all that light shining in, the sound of rain splattering against the glass.

“PJ, I see you sitting out there!”

Her mother had appeared at the door, just an outline through the screen of the mudroom entryway.

PJ got out, stepping over a few loose bricks on the cobblestone sidewalk.

Elizabeth held the door open for her. “Seems like ages.”

“It
has
been ages,” PJ said, noting the wide-leg capris that did nothing to camouflage her mother’s cast.

“Well, you’re here now, and I’m so glad, because I have a little project for you.” She patted PJ on the shoulder. “I’m glad you wore your cleaning clothes.”

No, she’d worn her best plaid shorts and her favorite green tee.

“Don’t forget to take off your shoes.”

PJ shook off her flip-flops and followed her mother through the house, albeit slowly, thanks to the crutches that did wonders for slowing her down. “You got granite countertops.”

“Of course.”

“And took out the screened porch.”

“I know. I wanted a room we could use all year round.”

We.
PJ didn’t ask who that might be since, to her knowledge, her mother lived here alone. Indeed, a CSI specialist moving through the house might find scant evidence
anyone
lived here. Not a dish in the sink, a magnet on the fridge. A freshly shaken chenille carpet under the honey oak table
 
—now how did her mother do that? Even the pillows in the family room lay plumped and undisturbed on a set of bourbon brown leather furniture.

“You finally recarpeted the family room.”

“Twice, actually.”

PJ dreaded what she might see as they climbed the stairs. Five bedrooms for four people
 
—she always wondered why her mother never filled them. Had been afraid to ask. She noticed her mother’s door remained shut. But the guest bedrooms hosted new wallpaper, pillowy comforters, fresh flowers on the cherry bedside tables.

“You running a B and B, Mom?”

Elizabeth frowned at her. “What?”

PJ peeked into Connie’s room. Once blue with buds of bachelor buttons in a high border of wallpaper, now the walls were creamy white with green ivy twining the windowsills and down the edge of the closet. “If not, then you should be.”

“Sometimes I just don’t understand you.” Elizabeth stopped outside PJ’s old bedroom door, hand on the knob. “Now, I don’t want you to be distressed by what you see. I just didn’t know what to do.”

“What did you do, put a match to the room?” Yet an unfamiliar
nostalgia cottoned her chest, and with everything inside her, she longed for pink and eyelet.

“For crying out loud, PJ.” Elizabeth opened the door.

PJ stood still, that cotton expanding to fill her throat, cutting off her breathing.

Preserved. Nearly to the hour she left it so long ago. Her mother had made the bed, pulled up the floral sheets and matching bedspread military tight. The clothes from her graduation party
 
—a white sleeveless top, a pair of dress pants
 
—lay folded on her desk chair.

The calendar read May 29.

Her clock flashed 12:00 a.m., a power outage fatality.

The room even smelled like the high school girl she remembered, as if she’d misted her Clinique Happy just moments ago. She advanced slowly onto the pink rug, staring at her softball trophies, her letter jacket slung over the bubble spindle of her bed frame, wallet senior pictures of her friends
 
—a big one of Trudi
 
—lined up in a row on her tall dresser.

Her prom dress hung limp in the open closet. PJ hooked her toes around the white stilettos she’d worn and wiggled one on, rising suddenly on one foot. “Back then, I could nearly look Boo
 
—”

Her mother’s eyes sharpened.

“Nothing.” She shook off the shoe, and it hit the back of the closet. “I can’t believe you haven’t touched this room. After all these years.”

Elizabeth ran her hand over the floral bedding, as if smoothing out the ripples of time. PJ had a picture, fast and stinging, of her mother standing right there, staring out the window, breathing in the lingering fragrances PJ left behind.

“I’m sorry that I . . . that it took me so long to come back, Mom.”

Elizabeth sighed, adjusted the pink pom-pommed pillow on the bed. “I need to remodel this room. So, could you clean your stuff out?”

With everything inside her, PJ wanted to close the three feet between them, to pull her mother against her. To remind her of the little girl who baked her a cake for her birthday and carried it home from Trudi’s house on her bicycle.

But that wasn’t the Sugar way.

PJ ran her fingertips over the gold mock Oscar she’d won in theater class. “All my stuff?”

Elizabeth smiled as if PJ might be the maid who’d just comprehended her English instructions. “Yes. All of it. Before you leave town again.”

“Sure, Mom.”

The phone rang.

“I can get it.”

“No, you stay here and get started.” Elizabeth eased by her on her crutches.

PJ reached out and steadied herself on the bed, her bones suddenly brittle.
“Before you leave town again.”
Because one never knew when she might have to leave town.

Clearly her mother was planning on it.

She walked over to the bookcase and pulled out a Nancy Drew book.
The Secret of the Old Clock.
She blew the dust from the worn pages. How she’d loved mysteries, fancied herself as Nancy, the supersleuth. She put the book on her desk, her hand dropping to the top drawer, her thumb running over the pewter pull.

She opened it. And sure enough, her prom pictures lay on top.

Her finger traced Boone’s smile.

“Oh no.”

Her mother’s voice traveled through the halls from her bedroom. Something in it made PJ turn, close the drawer, step out into the hall.

“That’s just terrible.”

PJ moved closer to the bedroom door, spying her mother through the crack. She’d sunk down onto the bed
 
—a burgundy tapestry comforter PJ didn’t recognize
 
—shaking her head. “Of course. Thanks for calling.” She hung up the phone, her shoulders slumping.

“What is it, Mom?” PJ opened the door, noticing her father’s pictures neatly lined up on her mother’s chest of drawers.

“I can’t believe it. Right here in Kellogg. Oh.” Her hand covered her mouth.

“You’re scaring me a little. Is it Connie? Sergei?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “It’s just horrible. Ernie Hoffman’s been murdered.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew it was a dream. Still, it felt real, nearly like a memory. PJ clutched her history book to her chest, the spiral-bound notebook catching on the straps of her camo-patterned tank. “Boone, stop it, I’m late for class.”

Across from her, over Boone’s shoulder, a poster announced the upcoming prom in silver glitter and blue swirls. The early smells of summer leaked in through the open windows, the redolence of freedom and the fragrance of warm grass on bare feet. Students filled the halls, the roar and laughter backdropping Boone’s murmurs against her neck.

“Boone!”

Of course, he didn’t listen, never did. He stood firm, bracing one hand over her shoulder, against the lockers, while the other caught in her long blonde hair. PJ looked down, watching it twine through his fingertips. “Hoffman will kill me. Again.”

“Peej, it’s gorgeous outside. I just got the bike out. How can you even think of being inside on a day like today?” He stepped back, arms wide, his smile every inch trouble, eyes twinkling, his bronze hair already kissed by the sun. “Skip school with me.”

Indeed, heat had slithered into the hallways on rays of summer sun. From far away, the school buzzer sounded.

“I’m late.” The words resounded outside her body, as if someone else might be reminding her of the PJ she knew she should be, the PJ who should fight to extricate herself from Boone’s magnetic pull. She managed to turn away, and as she did, the hallway bowed, as if made of gelatin. She took another step; it wobbled, and she ricocheted off the lockers.

Boone’s hand closed around her arm.

“I’m late!” Did she yank her arm away? The floor now sucked at her feet, and she pulled each step out with a slurping sound. Sweat slicked her forehead, dripped off her brow.

The buzzer sounded again.

“I’m late!” She threw herself into Hoffman’s classroom, landing hard on her knees. Her books bounced against her stomach, ripping at her breath.

“No! No! No!”

Mr. Hoffman stood over her, his mouth open
 
—the words must be coming from him, but his lips didn’t move
 
—his dark eyes wide upon her. As she stared at him, his eyes filled and he began to cry, thick crimson tears that dribbled down his chin and splashed on the black-and-white tiled floor, over her books, pooling at her knees.

PJ held out her palm. No, not tears. Blood.

She screamed, thrashed awake, and sat up fast. The force
slammed her against the little assailant sitting on her knees, bouncing. They smacked foreheads and he rolled off the bed and landed on the floor.

“Ow!”

Davy wailed, staring at her like she’d tried to murder him. He scrambled to his feet and ran. “I hate you! I hate you!”

PJ held her hand to her forehead, trying to sort dream from reality.

Her white curtains hung limp in the windless morning. Sweat dribbled down between her shoulder blades. A bird chirruped,
late, late, late
.

Her breathing motored to idle. A dream. Just a dream brought on by shock.

Next to her, on the bedside table, her radio buzzed. She slapped at it and realized she must have done that in her early morning daze because it read half-past the hour.

Awww. . . .
“Davy! We’re late!”

Throwing off her comforter, she ran to his room. He crouched before his PlayStation, still sniffing. He cut his eyes to her with a look that read betrayal. Tears dribbled down his cheeks.

It hit her then. He’d been on her bed. Trying to wake her? “Davy . . . are you okay?” She knelt beside him, reached out to push away his hair, survey the bump. He jerked away. “Was I having a bad dream?”

He wiped his snotty nose on the sleeve of his pajamas.

“Were you trying to wake me up, buddy?”

Slowly he put down his controller, drew up his legs tight against his chest, and locked his arms around them. He nodded without meeting her eyes.

PJ sat back on the floor next to him and touched his ankle. “No oatmeal this morning for heroes. How about some Cap’n Crunch?”

He picked up the controller, gave another swipe across his nose, and nodded.

“Listen
 
—let’s race. Get dressed and the first one downstairs wins.”

His thumbs continued pounding at the buttons. But his eyes caught hers. PJ slid her feet underneath her, poised like a runner. “Ready. Set . . .”

He sprang to his feet and ran to his clothes, neatly laid out the night before.

PJ took off for her room.

Davy beat her downstairs (but only because she stood in her doorway waiting) and she poured him a bowl of cereal. She made coffee, leaning a hip against the counter as she watched him, his hair still wrecked from sleep, a line of milk drizzling down his chin. He occasionally looked up, then, as if caught stealing something, sank his face back into the bowl.

PJ packed his lunch box with a cheese sandwich and a Rice Krispies Treat and herded him out of the house. He kicked her only once, as she helped him into the car. The sprinklers showered her windshield as she pulled into the loading zone.

“That’s two tardies, Miss Sugar.”

“Yeah, but note the missing Superman pants,” PJ said, giving Ms. Nicholson a wink as Davy ran past them to class without a good-bye.

At least they’d avoided the pre-school sumo wrestling today. Behind Davy’s anger, the stolen looks, the kicks to her shin, she’d recognized something vaguely familiar. Panic, maybe.
Or even desperation. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it niggled at her, right alongside her thoughts of Boone, her mother, and of course, poor Ernie Hoffman.

The sun blasted out of the sky, hot and stinging, as she drove home from Fellows. She made the mistake of angling around the beach, and an old hunger stirred inside. First thing on the agenda for the morning
 
—a tan. Then maybe she’d have the internal fortification to return to her mother’s and begin the Great Sort. She still didn’t know what to do with the feelings evoked by seeing the pristine, almost mausoleum condition of her room.

And after her nightmare, she needed to dig her toes into the warm sanity of the coarse Kellogg beach and lie with her eyes closed, letting her brain stop its crazy whirring.

She’d circled the question all night
 
—obviously long enough to let it embed her dreams: who would have killed good old Ernie Hoffman? The man didn’t have a mean mitochondria in his body, as evidenced not only by his generosity of spirit at her return but his kindness the night of the fire.

No, Hoffman wasn’t a person with a black book of enemies.

PJ flinched as she recalled the conversation with her mother yesterday after Elizabeth had told her the news.

“Ernie Hoffman, my old history teacher?” PJ had hung on the door, absorbing her mother’s words. “When? How?”

“Today, apparently. His daughter-in-law found him. And
 
—” Elizabeth lowered her voice
 
—“his neck was broken.”

“Are there any suspects, any clues?”

“I don’t know, PJ; I’m not a detective.” Her mother shook her head.

And that’s when things turned south, thanks to PJ’s sudden inability to keep a secret. “I saw him yesterday at the wedding. Did you hear about Jack Wilkes shoving him into the country club pool?”

Her mother hadn’t blinked, hadn’t moved at the name.

“Jack Wilkes is Trudi’s husband.”

“Your . . . friend Trudi, from high school?” She said it like she might be talking about a fatal disease, with the accompanying expression.

“Yes, Mom,
that
Trudi.”

Elizabeth had risen, smoothed her pants. “Well, that explains it, then. I always knew she was trouble.” She’d brushed past a speechless PJ and gone back to work.

Tried and convicted by Elizabeth Sugar.

Yes, definitely, PJ needed the beach and soon.

She arrived home and sprang up the stairs, donned her swimsuit and grabbed her towel, Connie’s daily edition of the
Kellogg Press
, and a highlighter.

She fully planned on being gainfully employed by the time Connie returned. Employed and perhaps not homeless.

She did a quick but less than committed search through the house for the internationals. The house was blessedly quiet.

Shoving a lawn chair into the backseat of the Bug, she left the house and in moments pulled up to the Kellogg beach. It couldn’t be called large
 
—more of a strip of sand and grass fortified by two tall lifeguard stands
 
—white skeletons against the pale sky
 
—and a still-closed snack stand. Behind the beach, cordoned off by a small bridge, an inlet blanketed by lily pads, corralled kayaks, canoes, and skiffs tethered to stakes and buoys.

PJ parked her car and pulled out her paraphernalia, then stood at the edge of the sand and took in the panorama of memories, from early childhood swimming lessons to middle school mortification to high school mischief.

And of course, nearly every one of those memories included Boone.

She picked a spot near the middle, free from shadows, unfolded her lawn chair, whipped off her T-shirt, and lathered on the coconut suntan oil.

There was little in the way of options in the employment ads. Waitstaff at Sunsets Supper Club and a cook at Hal’s Pizzeria. Security person needed at the bank and a home health aid listing.

She sighed, closing the paper. Frankly she’d easily qualify for any of those jobs
 
—she’d worked for six months as a receptionist in a swank Vegas spa. And with her stint as a stunt girl and her spotty knowledge of tae kwon do, she could probably land the bank position. But most likely, she’d find herself listing off the daily specials and filling cocktail orders at Sunsets.

Joe would probably still take her on. He’d liked her even after she dumped the roasted chicken with gravy into Craig Shuman’s lap. Didn’t even bat an eye when she pointed out that Craig deserved it.

She leaned back, closed her eyes, and let the sun caress her face. A lazy day was spooling out before her, and for the first time in over a decade, calm seeped into her bones, and finally she could breathe, could allow the wind into her lungs slowly. No more gulping, as if running hard behind the pack.

Home sweet home.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

The voice carried the sultry tone of a thousand memories, none of which she wanted to infect her beautiful day. “Go away.”

“Can’t. I’m on official business.”

PJ opened her eyes. Boone stood over her, his dark shadow cutting across her legs. He looked on the job in a blue dress shirt that probably turned his blue eyes into lethal weapons. The silver badge on his belt glinted shiny and bright like a medal. As usual, just seeing him curled a wave of emotion through her, not all of it painful. Someday her heart and her head were just going to have to learn to communicate.

“Are you stalking me?” PJ pushed up on one elbow.

“I might start.”

“Hey. Eyes up here, pal.” She grabbed her shirt and draped it over her.

He smiled. “Miss me?”

She leaned out of his shadow and cupped her hand to shade her vision. “What’s your name again?”

“Lieutenant Buckam to you, ma’am.”

PJ laughed and then cringed. She had to be tougher than this. “You’re cutting off my sun. Now I’m going to have a stripe.” She lay back down, closing her eyes to his imposing drama. “Really, go away.”

“Can’t do that.”

“Are you on beach patrol or something? bothering the locals?” She waved her hand at him, dismissing. “Fetch me a lemonade, then.”

He stood there, saying nothing. She peeked open an eye just in time to see him slip on his silver sunglasses. They hid his eyes and elicited the smallest burst of rebellious disappointment.

Oh, she was
such
a slower learner.

“Put some clothes on. I can’t bring you down to the station like that. The guys won’t be able to keep their eyes in their heads.”

“Hah! Like I’m going
anywhere
with you. Besides, are you
arresting
me?” She let out a laugh that was part disbelief, part righteous anger. “That’s uncannily perfect. I’d bet you’d just love to put handcuffs on me. Better yet, march me right out of town.”

She didn’t know when her tone had changed from humor to hurt, but there it hung between them, their past, bruised and bleeding.

PJ looked away, clenching her jaw, blinking, refusing to cushion the silence.

Boone stood above her, his chest rising once, twice. “The last thing I want to do is run you out of town. Or arrest you.”

His words were a splinter, driving through the hard places to the tender flesh beneath.

“But I do have to ask you to come down to the station with me because . . . we have a problem.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s a statute of limitations on
 
—”

“No, I’m not talking about the incident at the country club
or
Hinton’s pontoon boat.”

Oh yeah. She’d forgotten about the time they’d
borrowed
her neighbor’s pontoon boat.

“Why bother me, then?”

Boone held out his hand to help her up.

She ignored his help and stood, then took off her sunglasses and pulled her T-shirt over her head. It stuck to her skin.

He folded up her chair and draped her towel over his shoulder. “It’s about your . . . uh . . . houseguest.”

* * *

Public lewdness?

PJ stared at the charge sheet, then back at Boone. He cracked a mocking smile and she teetered one nerve short of decking him. “Oh, this is fun for you, isn’t it? Just a laugh fest.”

“Well . . . maybe. I mean, don’t you think it’s just a little ironic? Especially for me, a guy who knows your history. What is this, something that runs in your family?”

“Hush up. I’m sure they still have your records somewhere.” PJ glowered at him, as if she just might sprint past him into the files and dig up his rap sheet.

Still, being here at the police station, with its cool marble, the wanted pictures wallpapering the bulletin board, the phone jangling behind the glass partition, gave her the smallest of chills. Or maybe it was standing in her swimsuit, smelling of coconut, her skin prickling against the full blast of the air conditioner.