Lalla Bains 02 - A Dead Red Heart (6 page)

"Not yet." Then he went to make us a hearty breakfast.

Refreshed,
 
from some healthy sex, food, sleep, and something Pippa, my personal therapist, put into my head, I sang all the way home.

"Dad?" I called, pounding the dust off my boots on a rug outside the front door. Since a fire last year nearly wiped out me, my dad, my goddaughter, Maya, and the house; I now wipe my feet before walking over his newly refinished floor. A dark burn still stains the oak-planked floor where beams crashed down, but Dad, whose odd sense of timing never fails to amaze me, says he likes it that way.

Following the sound of the blender into the kitchen, I jiggled the pharmacy bag under my dad's nose.

He turned off the blender. "That our meds?"

I was having a hard time keeping a straight face. He was dressed in dazzling green polyester slacks and a white shirt with a big collar. The seventies were all over the pages of Vanity Fair and Vogue, but somehow the retro look didn't quite translate to sixty-eight year-old men with thinning gray hair and jug-handle ears. I cringed at the matching lime green suit jacket hanging on the back of the chair.

I put the bag on the table, drawing out two small bottles for him, and another one for his buddy, Spike.

"Okay. Heart meds, Lasix, arthritis pills, and Spike's crazy pills."

"He can hear you, you know."

I looked down at the small brown Chihuahua, his tail beating an uneven rhythm in time to some inner demon.

When he lifted a lip and snarled, I said, "And not a minute too soon, I see. When do you think the vet will take him off the Prozac?"

My dad uncapped the bottle and tipped out a pill. The dog's ears went up in trembling anticipation. "He's much better, don't you think?"

I studied the floor trying to find something kind to say about our resident Cujo, then got an eyeful of my dad's shoes.

He followed my stare down to his feet. "White for summer, right? They're already patent leather so I don't have to polish 'em. Lucky find, huh?"

I worked my lips around the laughter bubbling up, imagining my father in retro style leisure suit, escorting his latest squeeze to a potluck at church, or better yet—a funeral and its wake. I slid a glance at the blender looking for a reasonable topic of conversation, but since the frothy blue concoction might, or might not, have Viagra as its key ingredient, I blurted, "You need a haircut!"

A year ago he was recovering from a triple bypass walking around with his blood pressure cuff dangling off his arm, and dictating orders from his Barca lounger in a dark TV room on how I should run his Aero Ag business. All of that changed when our house was set on fire, and he realized that if he was going to live, he was darned well going to enjoy it.

"Hair cut? Oh, yeah." He put his hand up to the flyaway hair growing over his big ears. "That reminds me, George Winston died earlier this week."

"The pianist?"

"No silly, George Winston, my barber. We talked about everything, 'ol George and me."

"But not that he was sick?" Then at the stricken look on his face, added, "A sudden heart attack?"

"Cancer. Went right through him." He was thoughtful for a minute. "I don't know why I called him old. He was more'n likely your age. I'll be going to the funeral at two." Giving the shiny green polyester a fond pat, he shyly asked, "Think this will do? I'm taking Shirley Hosmer. There'll be a nice spread afterwards, so I expect we can call it supper."

Shirley Hosmer? The name pinged at a childhood memory. "Did you say Shirley Hosmer? My third grade teacher, Shirley Hosmer?"

"Well, she's not your grade school teacher anymore, she's my date."

I held up my hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, but a funeral?
 
Wouldn't you rather take her out to dinner instead?"

"Should I?" He stopped pouring the thick concoction, maybe trying to remember the paleontology of dating, or maybe he was considering the price of dinner versus the Viagra he'd mixed into his blender. He scooped a drop up with a finger, tasted and nodded his approval.

"Nah. The wake will have all that food, shame to waste it. Caleb called again. Coroner confirmed that Billy Wayne's death was a homicide. But still not your fault," he said, waving a dripping finger at me. "I got us a lawyer anyway. Young guy. He should do fine."

He was looking at me from under his bushy eyebrows. We both knew what he was talking about. Best not to engage anyone from his past. They might turn out to have skeletons in the closet like his last attorney.

He sniffed at the blender contents, poured out a glassful and upended it.

I asked, "Caleb say anything about a suspect, yet?"

"Nope. Not to me."

Caleb's method was to wait, drop little tidbits when and where it would benefit the investigation. He was a brilliant investigator, or a sneaky cold-hearted bastard, depending on who was talking. Since my relationship with Caleb was coming along so nicely, my dad wasn't above proudly pointing out those qualities to anyone who might be willing to listen.

"Well, he'll come up with something," he said, wiping away the thick stuff clinging to his upper lip. Of course, my dad put Caleb in the brilliant, not cold-hearted, category.

I wish I felt so confident. Where's Juanita? Did she leave already?" Since the last thing my mother said before she died was that no matter what we did, we were to keep the housekeeper; naturally our bingo-playing housekeeper is still with us. She cooks dinner but takes home the leftovers, changes the sheets once a week, does the laundry on Mondays, and she goes home when she darn well feels like it. There are rumors that she used to scrub the wooden floors on her hands and knees, but I think that's part mythology, part ancient history, since I seem to be the only one who swings a mop around here, and not if I can get out of it. On the good side, she's sober, and crazy about the even crazier pooch who came to live with us as part of last year's psychosis. I liked that about her.

"Shopping, I think," my dad said. "No, wait... bingo, or maybe shopping. Anyway, she'll be back later."

I decided to keep my opinions about his wardrobe to myself, and left through the back door for the busy work of invoices and bills.

Finished by midafternoon, I leaned back in my chair where it was nice and safe and I wasn't likely to give anyone advice on things like dating.

Caleb and I were dating. It felt odd, since I didn't usually date, I just married them, and then when we'd both become unbearably miserable, I divorced them. This wasn't bad, dating Caleb. It was actually pretty good as relationships go.

My reveries were interrupted by the phone.

"It's me," said my dad. "Shirley can't make it. Will you go with me? I hate to attend these things alone."

My dad knew my take on funerals. Together we'd already put two family members in the ground, so why did he think I would want to attend another one?

"Gee," I said, unable to control my antipathy towards the subject of funerals. "You mean to tell me Mrs. Hosmer declined your amazing offer of a funeral and a table full of free food?
 
Why go to these things, anyway?"

"See old friends, make new ones."

"There's your answer, then. Pick up some nice lady at the funeral."

He didn't say anything so I plowed ahead. "Let me think, go to a funeral, which you know I hate doing, and for some guy I don't even know? What're the odds, Dad?"

"It's just the funeral home, you can take your own car, skip the graveside and the wake."

We were in a brief lull between summer and harvest. All my work was complete, my desk virtually empty, and except for the dead body from two days ago, my mind was ghost-free and I meant to keep it that way.

Then he had to go and say, "It would mean a lot to me if you went."

I still owed him for losing the widow Warren's job to Junior Margrave, so that's why I went, never suspecting the trouble I would manage to rustle up at a perfectly sedate funeral.

Chapter seven:

Clients of George Winston, the barber, not the pianist, packed the Modesto Mortuary, all of them apparently in need of a haircut. Some were women, who may or may not have been wives, but seeing five or six single women, I figured I could cut loose from this gig after all. Unable to find a seat, my dad and I stood at the back and listened to the eulogy.

When it was finished, I nudged him, motioning with my head that I was leaving. He acknowledged my need to avoid the viewing, and stepped into the line for the casket. Maybe he'd find a date in line, take
her
to the wake and call it supper.

I slipped into the hallway and bumped into a grim faced, rail thin, woman in black. I politely excused myself.

Through tear stained and swollen red eyes she peered up at me. "Who're you?"

"Lalla Bains," I said, offering her my hand. "My father and I came for George's funeral. Are you, perhaps, his mother?"

"Yes, I'm his mother." A tic appeared in the wrinkled skin around her eyes, and in a wheezing breath she hissed, "I know who you are. You killed my baby!"

"Oh gee, lady, I'm sorry, but you must be thinking of someone else. I didn't know your son." I reached out for her arm to pull her away from the line of mourners steadily emptying into the lobby. "Why don't I get you some water, it's awfully hot."

She jerked her arm out of my grasp. "I'm not some crazy old woman and I know who you are. You lured my innocent boy to his death, you Jezebel!"

I tried to quiet her. "Ma'am, I think you've mistaken me for someone else. Let's get you some water."

I barely managed to duck the swinging purse she aimed at my head.

"Lady, please! I'm only trying to help!" What was this crazy woman thinking?

We were gathering a crowd—relieved I suppose, to see something other than another boring funeral. But no one stepped up to take control of the grieving mother, either. I looked at the amused faces, the hands in pockets as they waited for the possibility that there might be a cat fight to lighten up the day.

"Hey!" I called to no one in particular. "Can't one of you guys take Mrs. Winston out of here?"

They all stood where they were, blinking like a clutch of furry-headed owl-chicks. I backed towards the door as the enraged purse-wielding madwoman advanced on me. "Hey, stop that! Come on lady, quit that."

I tried again, "Come on guys, can't one of you do something with this woman before she does some damage?"

Giving up, I turned and raced down the steps, keeping my arms protectively over my head as we trailed a conga-line of excited funeral attendees behind us.

I turned to see several of them aiming cells phones at us, clicking away, enjoying the anticipation of the melee. Obviously, this was a much better show than inside. After all—the other guy was already dead.

She waved a bony finger in the air. "Billy Wayne would never have looked at your skinny hide if he'd been in his right mind."

Billy Wayne? Well, that explained who she was, and certainly her opinion about my physical attributes, but I wasn't about to wait around for the next salvo while the crowd captured the whole thing on their cell phones.

It was time to beat a hasty retreat and I ran for my car.

Behind me, I could hear the collective gasp of the crowd. I turned and saw Billy Wayne's mom pulling an ancient long-barrel .45 out of her purse.

The crowd stumbled back and out of gun range.

I couldn't blame them—the barrel looked about as long as her arm and just as heavy; but that didn't stop her from squeezing one eye shut and taking a wide legged shooter's stance.

With shaking hands, I jammed the key into the ignition and prayed I could still get to sixty before she pulled the trigger.

But I'd forgotten to put it in drive, and the big Caddy's engine simply roared at idle. With my heart tattering in my chest, I shoved the gearshift into drive, gripped the wheel and punched the gas. In the rearview mirror I saw Billy Wayne's mother, balancing the gun between a double-handed caress, and aiming that long blue steel barrel at my head.

Halfway down the block I glanced out of the side mirror and was shocked to see my dad forcing Mrs. Dobson's gun hand into the air. I rounded the corner on two wheels and hoped to God another member of the Bains family wasn't about to be arrested—or shot.