Nina Wright - Whiskey Mattimoe 06 - Whiskey and Soda (19 page)

“Seriously, babe,” he said, “what’s this about?”

He was holding up my left palm so that I could reread what I had written.

“Not now,” I moaned. “Later. Much later. Kiss me.”

Jeb complied, but his ardor had declined. While we made love, I could tell that his mind kept circling back to the note on my palm, which I couldn’t wait to wash off, proving that my mind veered there, too. Did he think I wrote the note because I had done something awful? Or because I was tempted to? Did he think I had cheated on him? Did he—horror of horrors—suspect that the baby wasn’t his?

The instant that fear slammed my brain, I jackknifed into a sitting position.

“Did I hurt you?” Jeb said, rolling away.

“No, and I didn’t hurt you. Honest. I’ve always been faithful.”

“Sure you have,” he said, suddenly sounding sleepy.

I shoved my left palm in his face, using the index finger of my right hand to tap what was now a black smear.

“This is about our future. This is about being good parents. Together.”

“Got it,” he yawned. “When I saw it, I thought maybe you were thinking of Sandra.”

“Huh?”

“I hoped it meant you were going to be fair to her.”

Uh-oh.

“Fair?” I said warily.

Jeb slid a pillow under his right shoulder so that his face was close to mine.

“You know, treat Sandra like she’s your dog, too.”

“I already have a dog. We have a dog. Her name is Abra.”

“No, babe,” Jeb said. “Abra is the dog you got with Leo. She’s always going to be part of him.”

“Why can’t you adopt her?” I almost shouted in frustration.

“I already have, but I also want a dog that’s ours. Yours and mine.”

“Sandra Bullock is your dog,” I said.

“I found Sandra, but she’s yours, too. She will love you, Whiskey. Sandra loves everybody.”

I didn’t hear a compliment in that line. I knew it was true, however. Sandra wagged her stubby stump of a tail at everyone she met.

Suddenly, I understood why Abra hated her. Sandra was an automatic tail-wagger, much as Stevie McCoy was an automatic smiler. Sandra wagged because she was built that way, whereas Stevie smiled to advance her sales career. Like Abra, I didn’t have much truck with naturally friendly types, but I could empathize with those who feigned friendliness to earn a living. I’d been known to do it myself.

Sandra’s easy gregariousness was the antithesis of Abra’s basic nature, which was to remain aloof and unattainable. Therein lay the seed of the two canines’ conflict. If only the bitches could talk it out. I said as much to Jeb.

“Maybe Chester can help,” he mused. “The kid’s been known to speak a little canine. Remember how he translated for Abra last summer?”

Jeb was referring to Abra’s experience as sole witness to a heinous act. Whereas Chester’s translated account of her doggie narrative wasn’t admissible in court, it did lead authorities to make an arrest.

“These dogs need counseling,” I said, trying to work up the courage to mention Anouk Gagné, Pet Psychic.

“You mean, like a pet psychic?” Jeb said.

“You know about pet psychics?”

“I know about one. The woman you saw on the Rail Trail. What’s her name? The one whose poodle’s hot for Abra. Lots of people take their dogs to her. Hey, aren’t you supposed to take Abra over there for a play date this week?”

I demanded to know how Jeb had heard about Anouk’s pet psychic biz before I did. After all, I sold real estate in this town while he spent half his time on the road.

“It’s that denial thing you got going on, babe. If you don’t want to know about it, you don’t know about it.”

Jeb caressed my belly just as our baby kicked. Hard.

“That is so cool. You got a boy in there, for sure.”

“Could be a girl,” I said. “A strong-willed girl who wants out.”

Jeb chuckled. “Just like her mom.”

We kissed again. And again. As usual, my guy plucked the sweetest strings within me, and the rest just happened naturally. After our lovemaking, I dreamt about Jeb, and my dreams felt almost as fine as the real thing until they moved to a view of the Rail Trail on a warm sunny day. I was riding alone on Blitzen, working up a sweat. Suddenly I spotted Jeb riding toward me, wearing yellow and white Spandex.

“You look like the headmaster,” I called out.

Jeb raised his hands, just as the headmaster had done.

“Don’t do that!” I screamed, but it was too late.

Like the headmaster, Jeb rolled off his bike. I squeezed my eyes shut, but not fast enough to block the sight of an arrow sticking out of his back.

“Nooooo,” I cried. “This can’t be happening!”

“Whiskey, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

I blinked at him in the blackness of our bedroom.

“I was having the dream again. You were riding on the Rail Trail. Like the headmaster, and you got killed just like he did.”

“Don’t worry, babe. I got no plans to ride a bike on the Rail Trail. Besides, nobody wants to kill me.”

“I’ll bet that’s what Mark Vreelander thought,” I said, wiping tears from my eyes. “Look at me. I’m crying.”

Jeb chuckled. “You must really love me.”

“This isn’t funny,” I said. “I’m really upset.”

“I know you are, babe, and it makes me love you even more than I already do.”

He drew me close and gave me a comforting kiss just as my phone rang. Jeb took his time completing the kiss before grabbing the phone from the nightstand and passing it to me.

“What time is it?” I barked into the phone without bothering to check Caller ID. I could guess who was on the other end.

“Seven twenty-nine,” Jenx said. “I worked an all-nighter.”

“Not my problem. You need to respect people’s schedules.”

“And you need to respect the commitments you make,” she retorted. “You promised to deliver two flash drives to the station.”

“Yeah, well, a bad bout of vandalism can mess things up.”

That reminded me of my lunch-hour appointment with the little criminal’s mom. Were we still on? Or was Stevie due down at Juvie Court with her kid? I asked Jenx what went down after Tate arrived at the station last night.

“He lawyered up, just like he told Brady he would. Ronald Kittler is representing him.”

“Seriously?”

Ronald Kittler was the priciest criminal defense attorney in Lanagan County. I suspected that Stevie’s real-estate nest egg was now her son’s legal defense fund.

Jenx said, “The good counselor showed up with Mom less than an hour after Brady brought Tate in.”

“Now that’s what I call customer service. Have charges been filed?”

“Not yet.”

“Any chance you’ll drop the charges?” I let my voice rise in childish hopefulness.

“You want me to drop the charges?” Jenx said. “Tate McCoy vandalized Vestige, among other properties.”

“I know, I know. Could you require restitution without litigation?”

“Restitution plus community service,” Jenx huffed. “You’d better tell me why you think that little shithead deserves a break.”

“He’s a nice enough kid.”

“He’s a prick,” Jenx said.

“He’s fifteen,” I protested.

“In addition to being a vandal, he’s got a raging case of P.O.P.”

Jenx was referring to his talent for pissing off police. She continued, “I was ready to pitch him through the plate-glass window just as his mom and attorney walked in.”

“Tate was contrite by the time he left Vestige,” I said. “He was so scared he peed himself.”

“Correction: he was so scared of you and the dogs he peed himself. Brady told me what happened.”

“Okay. So the kid’s a jerk,” I conceded. “But his mom’s nice. She’s the only sane person at The Bentwood School.”

“You want to sell her a house.”

“Well, yeah. That, too. I don’t how she can afford Ronald Kittler.”

“That’s not our business. Lots of people work out deals with their attorneys.”

Was Jenx hinting at something sexual? I had met Kittler several times. He was twenty years older than Stevie, divorced and not attractive in any way that I defined the term.

“Are you saying that Stevie and Kittler are an item?”

“No. I’m saying lots of people have unexpected resources. My guess is that Boss Man’s covering part of this bill.”

“Boss Man?”

“Tate’s only phone call last night was to George Bentwood.”

I blinked. How many kids would call the head of their school if they got busted?

“Tate called George, and George probably called Kittler,” Jenx said. “Who knows? Maybe legal fees are included in the tuition.”

“Maybe they should be,” I mused. “Bentwood probably called Kittler because he doesn’t want more bad press for the school, but why didn’t Tate phone his mom?”

“Maybe George is a father figure,” Jenx offered. “Somebody Tate confides in. Or maybe he was afraid his mom would go ballistic.”

“Stevie seems like one of the ‘cool’ moms,” I said. “Bentwood seems way too detached to be fatherly. Does he even have children?”

“Officially? Nope. But Loralee Lowe is pressuring him to admit that Gigi’s his. She’s got the DNA tests—and the pissed-off ex—to prove it. From what I hear, she’s playing nice so far, hoping Bentwood will step up and do the right thing.”

I didn’t see how admitting illicit paternity would be the “right thing” for George, given that his distinguished family had founded The Bentwood School, and he was the school president as well as Loralee’s employer.

“Who told you Loralee’s plan?” I said.

“It’s a rumor.”

“Come on. Who told you?”

“You know I can’t divulge sources.”

“Bullshit. This isn’t even your investigation. The State Boys have it.”

“Which is why you gotta bring me the flash drives,” she growled before clicking off.

When I returned my phone to the nightstand, I realized that my man was no longer warming the sheets.

“Jeb?” I asked the air.

No reply. Unless you counted a flying Affie answering to someone else’s name.

Abra the Afghan hound bounded across my bed en route to my bathroom. Seconds later, I heard her lapping out of the toilet like a common cur. She was probably not to blame for her lack of decorum as I couldn’t recall when I’d last refilled her water bowl. Munching Sandra’s hats had made her thirsty.

“Pancakes or oatmeal?” Jeb shouted from downstairs.

“For breakfast?” I inquired hopefully.

“I’m not taking a survey,” he replied.

“In that case I’ll have both.”

Momentarily overwhelmed with joy, I let myself sink back into my pillows. Not only was I getting a hot breakfast cooked by someone else, but that “someone else” happened to be the cheery father of my child. A man who now seemed more attentive—and attractive—than ever before in our long history. I was beginning to believe, finally, that Jeb just might be the loving and loyal partner I needed him to be.

Absentmindedly, I glanced at the gray smear on the palm of my left hand. Even though I could no longer read it, I remembered what I’d written, and what Jeb had said about it. He was correct, as usual. Doing the right thing would have to include Sandra Bullock.

After eating pancakes and oatmeal and offering Abra clean water and maybe, just maybe, enjoying dessert-in-bed with Jeb, I would call Anouk Gagné. I would take a deep breath and ask her to please, please apply her pet psychic skills to Abra and Sandra so that Jeb and I and our baby could live happily ever after.

Abra interrupted my reverie by leaping onto my bed and doing something she almost never did. She licked my face. I hate dog spit. Especially in the vicinity of my own spit, and extra especially when that dog spit just came from the toilet.

“Yuck. Ick. Arrgh.”

“She’s trying to kiss you, Whiskey,” Jeb said, laughing as he entered our bedroom with two steaming mugs.

“Slime me, you mean. Don’t even ask where her mouth has been.”

“I never ask that question,” he said, deftly delivering his own kiss along with the coffee.

It was the kind of kiss that renders breakfast irrelevant. I could only hope he hadn’t started anything else boiling because I was way too hot to let him leave.

Much later, he left the room to feed and water the hound. The food portion of our breakfast was yet to come. I couldn’t believe that my phone would ring again while it was still so early. I read the clock, which said nine. Time flies when you spend the morning at play.

“Whiskey? Stevie McCoy. I hope I’m not interrupting your day.”

I assured her that she wasn’t, but from there I didn’t know what to say or not say. I decided that the safest route was to pretend that I didn’t know the identity of the criminal captured on my lawn last night.

“This is so awkward,” Stevie said. “But here goes. That was my son who vandalized your property, Whiskey. I am very, very sorry about his actions, and he is, too. We will find a way to make it up to you. Please believe me.”

I did believe her. Except for the part about Tate’s being “very, very sorry.” I hadn’t seen a single sign of shame in the teenager, but I could let that go.

“Are we still on?” I asked her.

Silence. Then she groaned.

“Oh my god. I completely forgot that we were supposed to get together today. I was up all night with Tate, so I’m taking the day off. Frankly, I can’t face other parents right now.”

I made sympathetic noises, and I meant them. I had already seen the PTO unsheathe their claws. If they were willing to gang up on the headmaster, what might they do to the admissions/recruitment/marketing director once they decided her son was toxic to the school? Make her job a living hell.

I envisaged Kimmi Kellum-Ramirez, Robin Wardrip and Loralee Lowe texting the news of Tate’s arrest to every Bentwood School parent. Surely that had already happened unless Ronald Kittler had worked his magic. Was the criminal defense attorney adroit enough at damage control to keep Tate’s arrest on the down-low? Jenx hadn’t been specific about Kittler’s approach. If he had figured out how to hide or disguise the news from parents and the media, he just might save the kid’s reputation and his mom’s job, at least for now.

“Let me take you to lunch,” I told Stevie. “I owe you a meal.”