Wendy Delaney - Working Stiffs 02 - Sex, Lies, and Snickerdoodles Page 12

  I also wished Pete Lackey would come home. How could I see if the Lackeys appeared to be spending something resembling a normal evening together if they weren’t physically together?

  Marietta pointed the pickle toward the house two doors down from where I’d parked. “Who lives there again?”

  “A couple I interviewed earlier today.”

  “Well, if you interviewed them already, what are you spying on them for?”

  “I’m not spying. I just want to observe their behavior.”

  “Sounds like spying to me. So does this have something to do with Russell Falco?”

  She was asking questions I didn’t want to answer, especially if she was going to go home and spill the beans to Gram, who would promptly sic Steve on me if she didn’t like what she heard.

  “That’s not the only case I’m working on.” Skimpy on details but infused with possibility—typically the best kind of lie to tell to my mother.

  I glanced over to see if she’d bought it and stared as Marietta wrapped her collagen-injected lips around the pickle and sucked on it.

  Her eyes widened when she met my gaze. “What? It was dripping.”

  Good thing none of the guys who’d had her poster up in their junior high lockers were around because this R-rated scene was the stuff wet dreams were made of.

  “Uh-huh.”

  She tossed the rest of the pickle in the plastic shopping bag. “Chahmaine Digby, you have a filthy mind.”

  “Hey, you were the one rehearsing for the remake of Deep Throat.”

  Dabbing her napkin at her lips, she sat up straight like the Southern belle the general public assumed her to be. “Ah would never do anything so distasteful.”

  “Unless the right director came calling and it was an art film guaranteed to win at the Cannes Film Festival. Oh, and you got top billing.”

  “Well, now you’re talking,” she said without a trace of an accent, flipping down the mirrored visor to reapply her lipstick.

  No doubt a film like that would be the best thing that had happened to her career in over thirty years. And when her bank balance needed it most.

  I wrestled with the idea of saying anything about her finances because I wasn’t supposed to know about the dire straits she was in. The safest course for me was to circumvent her money problems. “Mom, I realize professional opportunities aren’t what they once were, but like you always say, you never know what’s around the corner.”

  Judging by the way her mouth flatlined, it looked like she saw only something big and scary around the corner. “I’m sure that if you take the next several months and make good decisions, you’ll create your own good luck.”

  I was probably regurgitating some fortune cookie wisdom my mother had picked up somewhere, but since she’d been dishing this crap out to me for most of my life, I hoped she’d be open to taking it for a change.

  She smacked her lips. “Right.”

  “Really, there’s no reason to rush anything right now. What did you used to always tell me? You can’t rush luck.”

  Marietta shifted her gaze from her reflection in the visor mirror to me, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes tightening with tension. “If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, I don’t feel that I’m rushing into anything.”

  “I’m sure that’s true …” Actually, I didn’t believe her for a second, but calling my mother on a lie was as healthy for our relationship as her trying to give me a makeover. “… but you just got divorced. It’s okay to slow things down a bit and think about what you really want.”

  She dropped her lipstick into a side pocket of her tote. “I could say the same to you.”

  This was so not the direction I wanted this conversation to take. “I—”

  “Don’t think I haven’t noticed all the late nights you’ve been spending with Steve.”

  “We’re just good friends.”

  Marietta pursed her freshly painted raspberry red mouth as she fluffed her hair in the mirror. “Uh-huh, and the next time my phone rings it’ll be my agent calling about that top billing.”

  “I … we …” Criminy! I couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t end up with me digging myself a deeper hole.

  She patted my knee. “Relax, sugar. I’ll trust you to make good decisions for yourself if you’ll trust me to do the same.”

  Since I knew that she couldn’t afford to purchase the two Lance Greenwood paintings that she’d been trying to talk Gram into hanging in the living room, my mother was asking me to take a big leap of faith. “Fine,” I ground out between clenched molars.

  After several uncomfortable beats of silence, she settled back in her seat. “Not that I haven’t been enjoying having a heart-to-heart with my daughter, but there doesn’t appear to be a lot to see here.”

  She was absolutely right. Without Pete there was nothing to see.

  I pulled out my cell phone and glanced at the time. Sixteen minutes after seven—over three hours since I left him at the house on Bay Vista. If he wasn’t still replacing some pipes there, I wanted to know where the heck he went.

  “Are we leaving?” Marietta asked when I started Gram’s Honda.

  “We’re going to check out another location.”

  “Could we stop at the Dairy Queen?”

  I tightened my grip on the steering wheel as we rounded the bend on Morton. “We don’t have time for ice cream.”

  “I need to use the bathroom fairly soon.”

  “We’ll be there in a few minutes. If the guy already left, I’ll take you home. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  Four minutes later, I spotted the Pete’s Plumbing truck right where I’d seen it last. I pulled up across the street from the row of mailboxes I’d parked behind earlier, where I could get a good look at the front of the house. The curtains were drawn so there wasn’t much to see here either, but at least I’d located Pete.

  “So what’s the plan?” Marietta asked.

  I didn’t have a plan. “We wait for a few minutes and see if he comes out.” I reached for the thermos. “Want some coffee?”

  “I already need to go to the bathroom, so no.”

  Twenty minutes later, with no movement on the street except a bulldog on a leash held by an elderly man with a cane, my mother turned to me. “I really need to go.”

  “I need to stay. Can’t you hold it a little while longer?”

  Her shoulders slumped. “I swear, if I sit and stare at that leaky faucet for one more minute I’m going to spring a leak!” She opened her car door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Surely someone around here will recognize me and will be happy to have the bragging rights that I used their bathroom.”

  “Just don’t knock on that door,” I said, pointing across the street. “In fact, go several doors down.” I’d been in the same room when one of Marietta’s more ardent fans started screaming at the top of her lungs. If there was going to be any sudden noise, I didn’t want it to spook Pete Lackey.

  “Fine.”

  From my rearview mirror I watched her rounded hips swivel with every step she took in her platform sandals. My hips should look so good at her age.

  Heck, I wished they looked as good now.

  She walked up the driveway of the third house behind me and disappeared for a minute.

  Then she was back on the sidewalk and heading to the next house. Must have been a no-go since she promptly crossed the street and walked up to a house with a For Sale sign out front. That’s when I lost sight of her. It’s also when Pete Lackey stepped out of the front door of the house I’d been watching for the last half hour, opened the back of his truck and climbed inside. Seconds later, he came out, dragging a large cardboard box.

  I grabbed the binoculars from the back seat to read the print on the box. Dialing in the focus I could make out the words, Shower Wall Kit.

  He was replacing a shower? Not just the pipes to the shower? Seemed like something beyond what a pl
umber would do.

  The octogenarian with the bulldog walked by again, obscuring my view. I lowered the binoculars and noticed he was peering into the car.

  I gave him a little wave. Yes, you caught me spying on a possible killer. Move on.

  The old dude frowned at me but continued on his walk.

  Good. I didn’t want any members of the Bay Vista Neighborhood Watch to think I was casing their houses, which was bound to happen any moment if I didn’t move my grandmother’s car out of their sight.

  It was going on eight o’clock and starting to get dark. It had also been almost ten minutes since I’d last seen my mother.

  How long could it take for her to charm her way into someone’s home and pee?

  Before I moved the car I needed to find her or I’d never hear the end of it, and I couldn’t very well do that without arousing suspicion until the dogwalker wasn’t around to watch. So I waited for the guy to disappear from view before I slowly backed the car up and parked in front of the For Sale sign.

  Since this house was the last place I had spotted Marietta, I walked up the driveway to take a look around. I climbed several steps to the front door and tried the door. Locked.

  I felt like I was playing a game of hide and go seek with my mother, and with Pete Lackey working three doors down this was no time for games.

  Looking up the street to make sure his truck was still there, I wandered into the side yard. “Mom?”

  Nothing.

  There was no way she’d be squatting behind any of the rhododendrons in the landscaping, so I walked around to the small back deck at the rear of the house and immediately noticed that the sliding glass door wasn’t shut tight.

  I pulled it open. “Mom?”

  No answer.

  Shit. Was it considered breaking and entering if the door wasn’t locked?

  I tiptoed into what looked like a breakfast nook to the left of the kitchen. When I rounded the corner and entered a short hallway that led to the living room, I caught a whiff of Marietta’s signature scent. It got stronger as I stood at the foot of the stairway. “Mom?”

  “I’m up here in the bathroom.”

  “What are you doing? I thought you were going to use your Marietta Moreau magic on one of the neighbors.”

  “No one would answer their doorbell. Fortunately, someone forgot to lock the back door because I really had to go.”

  “Well, hurry up. We need to get out of here and move the car.”

  “Honay, I’m going as fast as I can, but I’ve been a little backed up if you know what I mean.”

  Swell.

  “I also have a bit of a problem.”

  “Now what?”

  “There’s no toilet paper in here. How can they show a house without toilet paper in the bathrooms?”

  “The realtor probably didn’t expect any non-prospective home buyers to be taking a poop in there today.”

  “Then they should have locked all the doors!”

  “I have a pack of tissues in my bag. I left it in the car. I’ll get it.”

  “Hurry. It’s dark and creepy in here. It reminds me of those slasher movies I used to make, where the psycho always lived in the abandoned house.”

  Which most everyone at my school flocked to every Halloween. “Now you’re creeping me out,” I said, grateful for the street lamp across the street that was bathing the living room in soft light.

  “Just sit tight and I’ll be right back.” Then we needed to get out of here.

  I sprinted out the sliding glass door and came around to the front of the house, where I saw the elderly dogwalker on a cell phone.

  “Yeah, she’s right in front of me,” he said, glaring and pointing his cane at me. “Do you want me to make a citizen’s arrest?”

  What?

  “Okay. I’ll keep an eye on her until you get here. 4155 Bay Vista.” He held his phone out at arm’s length and squinted at it. “Damn buttons. They put ‘em too close together.”

  “Would you like me to help you, sir?” I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try to lighten the mood before any members of Port Merritt’s finest showed up with their lights flashing.

  He stabbed his cane in my direction. “Don’t move. The police are on their way.”

  I held up my hands while he tucked his phone into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. “Okay. I was just trying to help. I’ll just get my bag out of the car.”

  “I said don’t move.”

  “Really, Mr …”

  “Brubaker.”

  “Mr. Brubaker, this looks worse than it is. My mother was going door-to-door because she needed …” I couldn’t think of a way to state her dilemma so that he could see we weren’t criminals without telling him the unvarnished truth. “… because nature called, and now she’s in that house, out of toilet paper, and really needs some tissues.”

  He narrowed his beady eyes at me. “You must think I was born yesterday. She’s probably in there stealing light fixtures and anything else you two can sell on the black market.”

  Given my mother’s fear of bad publicity, his story might be preferable to a report about her getting arrested for breaking into a house to take a dump.

  I glanced down the street. At least Pete Lackey’s truck still sat in the driveway. But if he came out of that house and saw me talking to the police, he’d probably think I was on to him.

  I needed to get out of here and pronto.

  “Listen, I’m not a thief. Neither is my mother.” Pasting my most innocent smile on my face, I took two steps toward the passenger side door. “In fact, do you know who Marietta Moreau is?”

  “You want me to believe that’s Marietta Moreau in there?” He came around the back of the car as I opened the door and pulled out the pack of tissues from my tote.

  If she could play her star card, so could I. “Stay right here and you can meet her in a minute.”

  “Don’t try anything funny in there!” he yelled at my backside as I ran toward the house.

  The only thing I wanted to do was to get my mother’s hiney off the toilet, hop into Gram’s car, and clear out before Steve or one of his buddies pulled up.

  “Mom,” I called to her as I huffed and puffed my way up the stairs. “We’ve got trouble. A neighbor saw us in here and called the cops.”

  She stared at me wide-eyed as I handed her the tissue pack. “Oh, dear.”

  I retreated to the hallway to give her some privacy. “I told him who you were and that you were just using the bathroom—”

  “What?” She groaned. “If he sells his story to a scandal rag, I’ll be a laughing stock.”

  “Then you’d better be your most charming self in the next few minutes and hope that he doesn’t know how to use the camera on his cell phone.”

  After a few less than genteel curse words, I heard the toilet flush, then water running in the sink.

  Come on, come on, come on.

  Two seconds later, I rushed down the stairs with my mother hot on my heels.

  “Do you think I should have wiped the faucet down to remove my fingerprints?” she asked as I closed the sliding glass door behind her.

  “I already told the guy who you were, so it’s a little late for that.”

  She groaned again and I turned to face her. “You’re the one who wanted to give one of the neighbors bragging rights, so go do your thing. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Marietta fluffed her hair, licked her lips and took a deep breath. “I guess it’s showtime.”

  She swiveled her hips as she crossed the lawn. “Oh, mah goodness,” she said in her best Georgia peach drawl. “I can only imagine what you must be thinkin’ of me, but when a girl’s gotta go, a girl’s gotta go.”

  “Oh, pahdon me. Where are mah manners?” She extended her hand to the man who stared at her, slackjawed. “Marietta Moreau.”

  “Arnold Brubaker.”

  “Well, Arnold, it’s mah great pleasure to make your acquaintance.” She waved a manicured hand
in my direction. “Of course you’ve met mah daughtah.”

  I didn’t have any more time for social pleasantries and stepped around the front of the car to the driver’s door. “Mama, we should get you home. Those directions for the photo shoot were obviously wrong.”

  She blinked. “Oh, uh, most definitely wrong. I’ll have to scold my agent for sendin’ us on this wild goose chase.” She gazed into Arnold’s beady eyes. “Although it was very nice to meet you, Arnold.”

  He beamed. “The pleasure was all mine, Miss Moreau.”

  Since he was no longer brandishing his cane like an ancient pirate, I seized the opportunity to slide in behind the wheel to make our getaway as soon as my mother’s butt made contact with the passenger seat.

  Arnold opened her car door for her.

  “Ah hope you won’t mention mah embarrassin’ predicament to anyone.” She pressed her palm in his. “Ah’m sure you can understand my need for privacy.”

  “Madam, I do indeed.”

  Marietta smiled with satisfaction at me as she climbed into the car.

  Yes, you done good.

  “Well, that was a crisis averted,” she said, waving back at Arnold as we pulled away.

  “Not entirely.”

  “Why? I thought I played that perfectly.”

  “You did.”

  “Then what’s your problem?”

  It was driving up the hill in an unmarked cop car.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Are you sure I can’t tempt you with some lasagna, Stevie?” Gram asked, hovering in the living room like a traffic helicopter over a ten-car pile-up. Clucking her tongue, she glared at my mother and me, sitting side by side on the sofa. “I have plenty, especially since certain members of my family decided they’d rather dine out before they got started on their crime spree.”

  Steve sat quietly, looking no more threatening than a bungling Barney Fife of Mayberry.

  I knew better.

  “No, thanks, Eleanor,” he said. “I already ate.”

  “Well, I’ll just wrap some up and you can take it home with you.” Gram smiled sweetly at him. “After your interrogation.”