Nothing but Trouble (9 page)

“Help.” PJ gave Trudi a quick rundown. “Can you just watch him while I interview with Joe?”

“Seriously? Sunsets Supper Club? I thought you hated that place.”

“I hate starvation worse. And I have a couple Russians living with me that will feed me scary things like fried liver if I don’t bring home my own bacon. Besides, if I hope to stick around . . .”

Trudi reached for Davy’s hand. “Come with me, pal.”

He yanked his hand away and looked up at PJ with what could only be the eyes of a death row prisoner about to meet his fate.

“You’ll have fun, Davy. I promise.” PJ gave him a little nudge toward the Dixie cups and graham crackers.

“Let’s just sign a couple papers, and we’re all set,” Trudi said. Davy drank down one cup, threw it to the ground, and then ran to the sandbox. He was digging his way to Taiwan when PJ left.

Sunsets Supper Club had never been high elegance, with its long ramp leading to the front door, the dark wood paneling, the wide window advertising the weekly specials. Now the early seventies decor would be called retro. Still, the place bore hints of updates
 
—gleaming hardwood had replaced the thinned brown carpet, and the menus were linen-bound instead of in the previous red plastic folders. PJ spotted an earlier version of herself in one of the summer staff photos. She’d worn her hair pulled back then, and from this vantage, had on way too much makeup.

The vacancy at the hostess stand gave her opportunity to peruse the new menu. They’d added a few Caesar or club wraps to the usual surf and turf platter.

“PJ Sugar!” Joe hadn’t changed much in ten years
 
—short, slightly balding, and missing a right incisor. He still wore Hawaiian shirts over khaki pants, and he greeted PJ with a hug like she might be his long-lost daughter.

PJ found herself holding on far longer than she planned.

“I didn’t expect you to dress up to interview for a waitress gig,” Joe said. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Just till I get on my feet.” PJ followed him through the restaurant. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that until last night’s conversation with Director Nicholson, she’d planned on showing up in her shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops.

“How long are you back for?” Joe settled himself on one of the chairs at a white-linened table.

PJ straightened a place setting, not sure how to answer.

Joe finally nodded, gathering in her silence. “I’m going to need at least the summer. Can you promise me that?”

Did she want a job she had in high school?

Better question
 
—did she want to eat? Because once Connie discovered Davy’s truancy, she just might be out on the street. “Yes,” she said, sliding the word from her constricting throat before it got stuck. “The summer. But I can’t start until after Connie gets back from her honeymoon.”

“Give me a call then, and we’ll see what we can do.”

She took her time tooling back to Trudi’s, unable to shake the sound of defeat dragging behind her like shackles. So much for breaking free, starting over.

She couldn’t bear to pass Fellows, with its manicured lawns, the shaved shrubbery along the walk, the fragrant, pristine gardens, and turned instead onto a side street. She recognized it as the route to the old VFW, the
other
country club in town.

Except the square, brown brick building no longer stood in the lot, replaced instead by a new building, shiny and white, with a three-story steeple. PJ tapped her brakes long enough to read the sign on the outside
 
—Kellogg Praise and Worship Center.

Her Bug nearly pulled in on its own.

PJ sat in the parking lot, hands tight on the steering wheel, once again hearing Matthew’s pronouncement like a gavel upon her soul:
“You’re not pastor’s wife material.”

She found herself climbing out. The cool air prickled her skin under her shirt as she entered with a swoosh of air into the quiet building. The place felt . . . large. Looming double doors led to a dark sanctuary; a hall extended to room after Sunday school room, the smell of new carpet embedded in the walls. A bulletin board by the door white-lettered the weekly events. She noted
the time of the service, then wandered to a reception desk and picked up a brochure detailing women’s events.

For the first time in over a week, she didn’t hear the ghosts, didn’t feel her past sneaking up behind her, ready to lunge over her shoulder.

She closed her eyes and drew a deep, fragranced breath.

Sunday’s bulletins lay stacked on the table and she picked one up, read the order of service, the message title, and the text for the week. Taken from 1 Peter, the first chapter, the words were written in italics at the bottom:
To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered . . . who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father . . .

She didn’t read more. She knew just how it felt to be a stranger, to be scattered in home and purpose. Except she didn’t feel at all chosen
 
—well, maybe chosen for trouble. Chosen to mess up people’s lives, starting with Davy and Connie.

The trapped air of sanctity swelled over her as she crept inside the dark sanctuary, dim light streaming in through the window-paneled doors. She guessed it must hold over five hundred people. A muted spotlight up front hued a dark drum set, a baby grand piano.

She sat in a pew, closed her eyes, and tried to hear the beat, the tones of a praise song, but all that thrummed under her skin was the dormant rhythm of a peace she had once, briefly, known.

She hadn’t even thought about attending church in Kellogg. But maybe here in Kellogg she needed God more than anywhere else on the planet.

She’d learned plenty in the three years since becoming a Christian. Enough to dispel the common myth that Christians
always made the right decisions, that they threw off the shame or guilt of bygone mistakes without a backward glance, and most of all, that they didn’t, at times, long to fold into the temptations that blinded them before.

Temptations like Boone. Or the urge to pack up her duffel and flee, leaving behind the rubble.

She ran her hand over the sleek wood of the pew, the smoothness soaking through her palm to her veins, her bones, calming the frenzy of her thoughts.

I think I need help. I thought I had changed . . . but it’s looking to me like maybe I haven’t.

She bent forward and leaned her forehead onto the pew in front of her. Was it possible for a girl to rewrite her past, create a new future?

Lord, help me understand the person I’m supposed to be here.

She sat in the dark, trying to decipher the silences.

As she left the church, a slight breeze scurried through the poplar and oak, and the sweet breath of incoming rain softened the crisp air. Across the street, the savory aroma of hot dogs lifted from the outside grills of the credit union
 
—Customer Appreciation Days written on the blowing sign stretched across the doors. She skirted the temptation to be anonymously appreciated and arrived at Trudi’s just in time for an afternoon snack inside the house.

Five children sat at a pint-size table in the center of the room, holding Dixie cups, some wearing red mustaches.

“C’mon in, PJ. We’re having fresh-from-the-oven peanut butter cookies.” Trudi set down a cookie on Davy’s napkin square.

PJ yanked the treat out of Davy’s hand seconds before his life flashed before his eyes.

Above his scream, she met Trudi’s eyes, shaking. “He’s allergic to peanuts.”

Trudi set down her tray of cookies. “You forgot to write that on his form.”

“Oh . . . I did.” PJ collapsed into a toddler chair. “I can’t believe I nearly killed the kid.” She cupped a hand to her head. “Or maybe I can.”

Trudi dug through the cupboard, snagged a box of graham crackers, and handed one to Davy. His screaming silenced. Then she crouched before PJ, as if she might also need a cracker. “Calm down. I’ve dealt with allergic reactions before. I would have known what to do. But more than that, you were here in time.”

“I don’t know, Trude. It just seems that . . . trouble seems to follow me. I dodge it. And now I’m back here, the same person I tried to leave behind.”

“The same?”

“Joe hired me.”

“PJ, you’re hardly the same person. For one, you’re smarter.”

“I got my nephew kicked out of preschool.”

“You had to make a stand.”

“And I’m all but sitting by the phone. Hoping . . . you know.”

“That Boone will call?” Trudi’s eyes told PJ exactly how pitiful she’d become.

“I just don’t know how things can get worse.”

“Hey, Trude.” A door opened behind her and Jack poked his head out. “Has the postman been here yet? I’m expecting a package.”

“No
 
—”

“That’s not all you should be expecting.”

The voice came from behind Jack, who turned. PJ groaned. It just wasn’t fair that even here, even now
 
—

“Boone, what are you doing here?” Trudi rose as he appeared at the door.

Boone wore an unfamiliar, even dangerous expression, similar to the one he’d worn on Sunday at the club, his eyes unyielding.

His gaze scoured over PJ, unreadable for just a moment before he turned to Jack. “Jack Wilkes, you’re under arrest for the murder of Ernie Hoffman.”

Surely there was a wink coming. Something scandalous and Boone-ish. Only PJ didn’t like this joke, not at all. What was his problem that he had to skulk around town after her, arresting the people in her vortex? Was he trying to pull the world out from under her? knock her off her feet and hopefully into his arms?

But it had to be a joke. Jack might have had a dark moment last Sunday at the country club, but didn’t they all at one time or another? Or more often than they liked . . .

Most of all, something about the way Jack played with Chip and how he adored Trudi told PJ in her bones that he wasn’t a killer.

Only Boone didn’t wink. Didn’t smile.

“Boone
 
—,” Jack said.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Boone started, and PJ watched in disbelief as he pulled Jack into the office away from
the kids, whirled Jack to the wall, and cuffed him, an edge of anger to his movements.

“Boone!”

“Stay out of this, PJ,” Boone snapped before he finished Mirandizing Jack.

“You’re doing it again; I can’t believe it!”

Boone rounded on her, something sharp in his expression. “Doing what? My job?”

PJ took a step toward him, refusing to let the anger pulsing off him intimidate her. “You know what you’re doing
 
—accusing someone of something they didn’t do.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?”

For a long, brilliant moment, pain filled his eyes, lethal and deep. Well, he wasn’t the one who’d been on the wrong end of a false accusation. He didn’t seriously think that she’d stand here and watch while he marched Jack
 
—
Trudi’s
Jack
 
—off to the slammer, did he?

PJ’s voice levered low. “I’m not letting you do this again.”

Boone tightened his jaw, and his Adam’s apple plunged quick and hard. When he spoke, his voice matched hers
 
—only with an edge of warning that sent a tremor through her. “Stop, before you say something you wish you hadn’t.”

Oh, she couldn’t count the things she wished she’d said. “Just stop for a second, Boone. Think about this.”
Please don’t wreck another person’s life.
“Jack might have been angry with Ernie, but certainly he’s not the type to commit murder.”

“You don’t want to get between me and my job here. You’re the one who’ll get hurt.” Boone’s eyes flashed, and for a sec
ond she saw him as she always knew he’d be
 
—passionate and resolute, serious and able.

“Oh, I know all about how it feels to get in your way.”

He flinched, but she didn’t care that she’d hurt him or that she’d let something ugly stir to life and sour in the pit of her stomach.

“Wait
 
—” Trudi lunged toward them as Boone pushed Jack toward the door. “I heard about Ernie.” Her voice dropped to a horrified whisper. “But what does Jack have to do with it?”

Boone stopped, glanced back, as though seeing Trudi for the first time. His gaze slid over to PJ, his eyes in hers, as if waiting for her to fill in the blanks even as he spoke to Trudi. “Jack didn’t tell you that he attacked Hoffman on Sunday? At the country club?”

PJ tried not to hear accusation, as if for some reason, she should have told Trudi.

Or maybe it was simply guilt, rushing up to knee her in the kidneys.

No. This wasn’t her fault.

Trudi turned to Jack, who stared at the floor.

“Yeah,” PJ said softly, painfully. “At Connie’s wedding. Right after Ernie bought Davy an ice-cream cone.”

“You were there?”

PJ didn’t even have to nod before the air flushed out of Trudi. She stumbled back against the massage bench set up in the office. “They said he was strangled . . .”

Boone hadn’t yet taken his eyes from PJ, and now he sighed, as if by just being here with Jack and Trudi, she’d become part of a world he hadn’t invited her into, a side of himself he didn’t want her to see.

Perhaps they all just wanted to live in a pocket of time when everything felt whole and fresh and bulletproof. PJ knew, right then, that she did. At least long enough to get her bearings, to figure out who might be telling the truth.

Finally Boone faced Trudi. “He died from a broken neck. Denise, his son Tucker’s wife, found him on his massage table at his home Monday afternoon. ME says he’d been dead since that morning.”

“What makes you think I’m involved?” Jack had found his voice.

“You have a weekly appointment on Monday mornings, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I showed up, but his door was locked. He never answered. I called him but didn’t get an answer.” Jack looked at Trudi as he spoke, his tone saying so much more than his words.
I didn’t do this.

“According to Ben Murphy, he saw your car there Monday morning.”

“Sure, I was there, but like I said, he didn’t answer. I did some paperwork in the car and then went on to my next appointment in Edina.”

Boone shook his head and gave him a small shove. “Give us your alibi down at the station.”

But Jack wouldn’t be moved, not yet. He looked at Trudi, and everything in his face made PJ tremble. “I haven’t done anything wrong, especially murder someone.”

Trudi edged up beside Jack, took his arm.

PJ glanced at the kids. They’d gathered at the entrance to the office and now stood in a clump of wide-eyed horror, glued to the drama. “Why don’t you guys go into the next room?”

“We’re going to the station,” Boone said.

“I was talking to the
 
—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jack snapped.

“Boone, you’re scaring the kids.” PJ returned to the day care kids. “C’mon, Davy.” But Davy had frozen and apparently lost all feeling in his limbs, because when she reached out to take his hand, he didn’t so much as snarl at her.

Clearly all of them had entered the twilight zone.

Trudi covered her mouth, sucking in broken sobs.

“We’ll figure this out, honey,” Jack said, a second before Boone pushed him out the door.

Trudi crumpled onto the floor next to the door.

PJ’s eyes burned as she grabbed the graham cracker box and pushed Play on the DVD player. On the screen Barney began clapping, jumping up and down, delirious over some happy song. PJ felt a little delirious herself, although she felt more like wailing. As if something perfect and wonderful had been torn, ripped to tiny, fraying shreds.

By Boone . . . again.

The kids wandered back into the room and sat down, wooed by Barney and his enthusiasm. PJ returned to the office in time to see Trudi cover her face with her hands, shaking. The sight of her dredged up the too-raw memory of the rainy night she crumpled on the front stoop, eyes puffy, with the dark news that she’d been thrown out of the house by her father.
“I think I’m pregnant.”

PJ stood over her with the fresh realization that once upon a time she’d left Trudi behind to wrestle her troubles on her own as PJ slunk off into the night.

“Do you need a paper bag?” PJ asked in a tone reserved for
a small child. “Maybe you should put your head between your knees?” She got up, went to the small refrigerator in the day care, and pulled out an apple juice.

Trudi rose and followed her, propping herself up against the doorjamb. PJ handed her the juice and Trudi’s hand shook as she drank it. Then she leaned her head against the doorjamb, closing her eyes.

Outside, PJ heard Boone’s patrol car pull away.

“Remember on Monday, when the grocery store refused my ATM card?” Trudi said, her voice quavering. “I went down to the bank to straighten it out. All our accounts had been drained.”

“By whom?”

“I don’t know. But Jack wouldn’t answer when I asked him about it. He told me . . .” She shook her head as if the words wouldn’t fit, as if she wouldn’t let them. “It’s . . . nothing. I’m sure it’s a mistake.” Then her voice brightened into something otherworldly, full of pageantry. “Who wants to go outside and play?”

“Trudi.”

But she pushed past PJ and tapped the Pause button on the DVD player. Barney froze midclap. “Outside, please, everyone.” Trudi’s voice screeched, high and on the edge of breaking.

“Trudi
 
—” PJ grasped her arms
 
—“stop. What did Jack tell you?”

She met PJ’s eyes, then looked at the floor as the kids scrambled outside. “Just that he’d given Ernie some money to buy something for him
 
—you know, on eBay. But maybe . . . You don’t think that Ernie would have stolen . . . No, that’s not possible.”

“What was he going to buy?”

Trudi shook her head. “He said it was a surprise.”

“Yeah. Well, surprise. Listen, you’re going down to the police station. Now. I’ll stay here.”

Trudi’s eyes focused, finally, briefly. “With the kids?”

“No, with the sheep. Of course with the kids. Are you okay to drive?”

She nodded, but it was wobbly and reminded PJ too much of their tailgating days. “Maybe I should call someone to drive you?”

“No . . . I’ll be okay. I’ll take the baby.”

Oh, that would be in everyone’s best interests.

Trudi stood there too long, however, rooted, and PJ wondered if she’d heard her at all.

“Trudi.”

She looked up, and PJ saw her, ten years ago, hair stringy around her wet face, holding herself as her future roared up, dark and ugly before her.

“Don’t leave me.”

PJ pulled her tight, held her with everything she had inside, and more. “No, Trudi, not this time.”

* * *

“I wanna go home!”

Davy wasn’t the only one. For a moment, PJ let him go as he pushed away from their Play-Doh garden, complete with red snakes and green lizards and blue flowers. She smelled like paste, and dough mortared her fingernails.

Two hours. No wonder she hadn’t lasted more than two weeks as a camp counselor, preferring instead lifeguarding
and nature hikes. The graham crackers had long since run out, and PJ just wanted to climb to the tall tower outside and pull up the gangplank. Clearly she wasn’t cut out to entertain preschoolers with grace and charm. Although, until Davy had decided to jump ship, she’d had her little sailors singing right along with Barney.

“Davy, don’t you want to play with the Play-Doh? I’ll teach you how to make a snake.”

“It’s yucky. It sticks to my fingers.” He made a face. “I want a cookie.”

Of course he did. But she’d set a rather deplorable precedent over the past few days and perhaps it was time they all straightened up. “After supper. We have to wait until Daniel and Felicia’s mommy arrives; then I’ll make you some macaroni.”

Davy glared at her. PJ held in a retort to the effect that it was either that or leftover vodka-soaked walleye. Just once, she wanted to see him choke down the alternative.

“Is my mommy going to be here soon?” Felicia, a little girl with golden brown cornrows that must have taken her mother hours of painstaking braiding, stood on her chair, raising her skirt over her head. Showing off her pink My Little Pony underwear.

PJ grabbed for the hem of her dress. “Sit down, honey. And yes.”
Please yes
. With the exception of the Hudson twins
 
—Felicia and Daniel
 
—the children had all been picked up within an hour of Jack’s arrest, something PJ could only credit to the Kellogg grapevine. How PJ looked forward to telling Trudi that most planned on finding alternative child care.

Just one more minute with Boone, preferably in a closed room without witnesses
 
—that’s all PJ wanted.

Four-year-old Daniel sat at the table, his big brown eyes
huge and full of vigor as he pounded his pile of dough to an indiscernible mess.

“And what about Miss Trudi? Will she be back?” Felicia hopped off her chair and twirled in a circle, her sundress flying out around her. She giggled and fell into a heap.

PJ had the inexpressible urge to join her, giggling insanely in a heap. “I hope so.”

“Knock, knock!”

The woman accompanying the accented voice was beautiful and dark-skinned, her hair in enviable spirals to her shoulders. She wore hospital scrubs.

“Mama!” Felicia bounced to her feet and sprinted for her mother.

Daniel squeezed his dough between his fingers like the blob.

PJ brushed off her hands. “Hi there. Trudi had an emergency. I’m PJ
 
—Davy’s aunt.”

“Maxine Hudson. Thank you for staying and watching the kids. I hope everything is okay with Trudi.”

PJ opened her mouth, not sure how far the news had traveled. Maybe hearing it from someone in Trudi’s corner would be better.

Or not. No matter how “her husband’s been arrested” came out, it only sounded dark and painful. “I’m sure she’ll be back tomorrow.” PJ crouched next to Daniel. “Honey, your mommy’s here. Time to clean up.”

Daniel smiled at his mom, then started to smash the dough into the container.

“You help too,” Maxine said to Felicia.

Oops, PJ’s turn. “Davy?” He lay in the fetal position on the floor. “Davy, can you help clean up too?”

“No!”

PJ cleared her throat, Maxine’s gaze heavy on her neck. “Davy
 
—”

“Go away!”

“What should we do with these salt-dough hearts?” Maxine asked, transferring her daughter’s creations to a cookie tray, neatly deflecting attention from the drama.

“Uh . . . Felicia can keep those to dry off and paint tomorrow.”

Maxine carried the tray to the counter and placed it next to the other drying art projects.

PJ turned back to Davy.
Please.

“Is he okay? Maybe he’s just having a hard day.”

PJ instantly liked her. Which could be why the words just seemed to spill out, unguarded. “He’s tired of me, I think. His mother is on her honeymoon.”

“Oh.” Maxine lifted Daniel from his chair, brought him to the sink to wash up. “He’s new here, right?”

“He is. He was in Fellows, but . . . I thought it was too constricting. So, he’s here now.” She didn’t have to unearth everything for Maxine, who apparently was not only a superb mother but looked good doing it too.