09 Dead Man Running, page 2
“That’s why I’m hoping, come November, I’ll be working for your stepfather.”
I contemplated that as I headed back to Bill’s office. I was used to having Colin as the sheriff. Life in this town would be so different, not because he would be mayor, but because he wouldn’t be sheriff any longer.
I wasn’t so sure it would be for the best. Although I would never tell him that. And to think, none of this would even be possible if he didn’t have a dual citizenship and own an antique shop here in town.
Besides, then who would be sheriff?
I knocked once, heard Bill say, “Enter,” and went in. “Hello, Bill.”
“Torie,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“About this parade,” I said.
He held a hand up. Bill reminds me of a bowling ball. Bowling is his favorite thing on earth, but he’s also round like a bowling ball—and shiny. All he needs is three holes drilled in his head.
I didn’t really mean that.
“I’ve already said no,” Bill said. “You think I’m going to say yes to you when I’ve already said no to Helen?”
“Well, yes,” I said.
“Why?” he said and smiled from his lofty position of mayorhood.
“The parade is the perfect way to advertise, Bill. Just think. A whole float dedicated to your worthiness for office,” I said.
I could see him mulling it over in his mind. Then he realized that Colin would have just as big a chance to put a float out there with his name on it. The idea was dead in the water. Well, nobody could say that I hadn’t tried to play fair first.
“See ya, Torie. Nice try.”
“All right,” I said. “Everybody will be so interested to hear how afraid you were that your float wouldn’t be as good as Colin’s, and that’s the real reason you nixed the parade.”
“You wouldn’t,” he said.
“I’m on my way to Eleanore’s right now,” I said, and headed for his door. Eleanore, the town’s ink slinger and gossip monger and the owner of the Murdoch Inn, would have a field day with this, and he knew it. “We all know that the real reason you don’t want a parade is because Colin’s float will be bigger and better and make you look like a ninny.”
“You were switched at birth,” he said. “I’ve met your parents. There’s no way you came from either one of them.”
“I am the demon seed,” I conceded, bowing my head.
“Even your mother-in-law is good,” he said.
“Hey,” I snapped. “Don’t you bring my mother-in-law into this.”
He sighed heavily. One of two things was going to happen. Either he’d stick to his guns, just to spite me, because he’d go to any length to make sure my plans were foiled. Or he’d realize that Eleanore’s mouth could do more damage than a thousand Monica Lewinskis.
“Fine, you get your damn parade,” he said. “But if there’s any property damage, the historical society will pay for it.”
“Great,” I said. “Most people have their floats made already. So you better get on the stick.”
With that, I left. It was true. Most people had made their floats over the summer, in case we would get to have the parade. A parade was something I had always wanted, but when Sylvia was alive, there was never any chance of one. Sylvia, the president of the historical society for decades, had been a dear friend of mine and had also been my boss. When she died, she left me everything, including the Gaheimer House, which was home to the historical society and all of its holdings. Sylvia used to be in charge of everything and she hated parades, so we never got one.
It had taken me a while to get used to the fact that I no longer had to worry about money and that I was the owner of the Gaheimer house, but one day I woke up and realized that I was finally in charge. It’s not like I’m some sort of dictator; we do things democratically at the historical society. We vote on everything, but what fun it’s been to suggest something and have it voted on, rather than having one person decide the fate of all. The historical society had voted back in July that we wanted a parade this year. All we had to do was get past the mayor—and I’d just done that.
I waved to Rose on the way out, stepped out into the street, and ran smack dab into my stepfather. Colin, who is a really big guy—like Bubba big, but not as big as Tiny Tim—tried to stop himself before barreling into me, but there is such a thing as inertia, and he couldn’t quite get stopped all the way. I ended up on the sidewalk.
“Oh, sorry, Torie,” he said. “I tried to stop.”
“That’s all right,” I said and stood up and brushed off my butt. He was well over six feet tall, pushing fifty, and … an okay guy. He’s twelve years younger than my mother. People used to think the whole age thing bothered me. If my mother had married George Clooney, I wouldn’t have cared about the age difference. My problem with my mother marrying Colin stemmed from the fact that Colin wasn’t George Clooney, and he had actually arrested me once. Okay, he’d arrested me twice now, but at the time she decided to marry him it had been only once, and I was convinced that she was deserting me for the enemy. I’m over all of that now. “Hey, I was just going to call you.”
He glanced at city hall, where I’d just been, and then back to me. He was worried. He always thought I was getting into trouble. Even when I wasn’t. It was a little annoying, and now I knew how my daughter Mary always felt.
“Why?” he asked.
“The parade is a go. Do you have your float ready?”
“You mean it?” he asked, beaming. “How’d you do it?”
“I just told the mayor in no uncertain terms that we had the interest of the town at heart. By depriving us of the parade, he was depriving us of much-needed revenue and county-wide exposure. Besides, our children’s hearts would be broken if they didn’t get a chance to have a parade at least once in their lives.”
“You threatened him with Eleanore, didn’t you?”
“Yup,” I said. “Go get your float ready! We’re parading on Saturday.”
Two
Mom, can you give Riley a ride home?” Rachel asked. There she stood, my little baby girl. I’d spent sixteen hours in labor—shedding all notions of propriety and innocence—to bring her into this world. She stood smiling and expectant at the door of the car, big doe eyes and pink cheeks, asking me to give that trumpet player a ride home when he only lived two blocks away and both of his legs worked perfectly. It’d be one thing if he were on crutches.
I just smiled and said, “Sure.” After all, she was my baby, and I kept thinking that at any point now her genes would kick in and she’d realize she was too smart for Riley.
Riley Graham. Good Scots-Irish stock, Rudy would say—and he was, as far as I could tell. I was a genealogist, for crying out loud; it was my job to know these things. For the record, it didn’t matter to me what sort of “stock” he was, as long as his hands were slow and his intentions pure, but I knew the first time I met Riley that there was no hope for Rachel. He was lean and lanky, with gorgeous green eyes and black eyelashes, ruddy cheeks, and curly brown hair that just touched his shoulders. He could have come off the cover of Teen Beat, but the main thing was, he was gaga over Rachel. Rachel had never had anybody be gaga over her, much less a Teen Beat stud muffin.
Rachel and Riley got in the car with their instruments, and I drove to his house. Rachel sat in the backseat. I can remember a time when she would have drawn blood on her sister to get the front seat. Not since the discovery of Riley the Great. No, she wants to be wherever he is. One inch away is too far, so you can imagine how horrible a whole front seat away would be! I remember being like that, so infatuated with a person that it almost physically hurt. Riley whispered something in her ear, and she giggled. I don’t know, maybe it’s all those band camp jokes going around, but I was in the front seat nearly having a stroke. He whispered in her ear! My daughter’s ear! Didn’t he realize that her ear wasn’t on the open market yet?
Two blocks went by slowly. Riley opened the door when I finally stopped in front of his cozy ranch house. “Thanks, Mrs. O’Shea.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, but he didn’t hear me. At that moment I glanced down and saw him squeeze Rachel’s hand. She squeezed back.
Absolutely not! There would be no squeezing of any kind going on in my backseat! He just … they just squeezed! He got out of the car before I came to my senses and threw something at him.
I drove away, contemplating whether I should call his mother about all of this squeezing and gazing stuff they were doing. I knew Cyndi Graham because she served on the Council of Charitable Organizations and we’d combined forces for a few events in the past. Very nice lady. That didn’t mean she didn’t have a rogue son.
Rachel was quiet. “So, how was band practice?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.
“Good.”
One-word answer, coming from the girl who had ad-libbed to the Pledge of Allegiance since she was three.
“Just good?”
“Yeah,” she said, and sighed.
“So … Riley plays the trumpet,” I said.
“Yup,” she said. “You know that.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Has he ever thought of playing a different instrument?”
I checked the mirror. Rachel rolled her eyes. “You’ve got something against trumpet players, don’t you?”
“No, no, no, I don’t,” I said. Can’t disapprove of Riley or she’ll like him all the more. This was a girl, a teenaged girl, after all. “Just curious if he played any other instruments. You know, your grandpa will be interested. Since he’s a musician.”
My father wouldn’t have much use for a brass section, though. Dad plays mostly honky-tonk from the sixties, some bluegrass, and, every now and then, some really old stuff from the Sun Studio sessions. Still, it would give him something to talk about with the kid. I made a left and a right and then was a few hundred yards from our house. My mood picked up considerably as I realized that when we moved into the new house, it would put more distance between Riley and Rachel. Almost two whole miles.
We got out of the car, and I took a deep breath. The smell of autumn was heavy on the air, the blue sky so deep it almost seemed as if I were standing on the bottom of the ocean looking up. Brilliant red and orange leaves flittered against the sky, and I realized with some satisfaction that my favorite stretch of the year was just beginning.
From October to June is my favorite time, especially any months in there that contain snow. I’m pretty miserable from July to September—in the St. Louis area those months are hot, humid, and more hot—but October is usually so grand that Mother Nature seems to be apologizing for any insult she dealt during the summer.
We were walking into the house just as Rudy pulled up. He’d picked up Mary and Matthew from my mother’s house. As soon as we were inside, everybody went his or her own way, and I started dinner. “Mary!” I called. “You need to feed the chickens!”
“All right,” she said. She ran through the kitchen, out onto the back porch, and into the yard. I watched as she jumped from rock to rock along our pathway to the chicken coop. Mary is at that stage where she can’t just walk anywhere. No, she has to run, skip, jump, and walk backward, what have you, as long as it isn’t just plain old one foot in front of the other. Matthew had turned on the television and was watching cartoons. I took a casserole out of the freezer and turned on the oven. The phone rang. It was for Rachel.
Mary came traipsing in, cheeks rosy from the chilly air, and grabbed a cookie out of the cookie jar. “There’s some weird guy in the mayor’s yard,” she said.
Mary is quite a little jewel in her own right. She still has a preteen sparkle to her. At the same time, she’s far too smart and knowledgeable for her own good. She’s the middle child, not always a good place to be. Actually, she’d been the baby for years, then been displaced, quite unexpectedly, by her brother. Matthew had not been planned and had come as quite a surprise to all of us. I think Mary felt we’d dealt her some unjust punishment in the way of a brother, and she’s been making us pay for it ever since.
“Mary,” I said, “there’s a big fence out back. The only way to see the mayor’s yard is to stand on a ladder or get up on top of the chicken house. Which did you do?”
“Which one will I get in the least trouble for?” she asked.
“Give me that cookie,” I said and snatched it from her. As she turned to leave the room, I added, “What kind of weird guy?”
“I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. “He was hiding behind a bush.”
“He what?” I asked.
“He was hiding behind a bush,” she said. “Since you’re not going to let me have that cookie, can I go now?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Mom?”
“What?”
“Are you ever going to color your hair?”
“Eventually.”
“How far off is eventually?”
“Go to your room,” I said.
I put the casserole in the oven, snapped the ends off of a pile of fresh green beans, and then got the biscuits ready. I wondered why there was somebody hiding behind a bush in the mayor’s backyard. Was it Colin? Was it somebody Colin had hired? I mean, this race was getting so nasty, I wouldn’t put it past Colin to try to dig up some sort of dirt on the mayor or his family, but I found it really hard to believe he’d stoop to spying. That would be something I would do.
I wiped my hands on a dish towel and then headed out into the backyard to the chicken coop. I opened the gate, and half of the chickens immediately scattered and the remaining brave ones came up to see if I had come bearing food. Bob, the rooster, pecked my toe, which is what he usually does. I tried peeking through the privacy fence to see into the backyard next door, but all I could see was a sliver of green. Well, I was just going to have to follow Mary’s lead.
I put my foot in the window of the chicken house, grabbed the top of the fence, and pulled myself up onto the roof. I know that’s how it’s done because I’ve seen Mary do it in the past. I swear—any time I’ve ever spied on the mayor, I’ve used a ladder, but I didn’t feel like hauling it out of the garage and carrying it back here, just to check to see if there was a guy hiding in the mayor’s bushes. I peered into the yard and didn’t see anything unusual. Then my chickens started squawking and making a ruckus, and I saw something move in the bush behind the big oak tree. There really was somebody sitting there watching the mayor’s house. Mary hadn’t been lying. Not that I don’t trust Mary, but she has a really active imagination, and if there’s a way for her to get attention from her sister, she will. So sometimes she sort of stretches the truth. A lot. In fact, in some circles it would be considered lying.
I was more stumped than worried by the man’s presence. Who would be watching the mayor’s house? And why? About that time the board I was standing on snapped. The last thing I saw was the man looking up quickly, just as I came crashing down into the chicken house.
Somehow I ended up with my head on the floor and my butt wedged into a nest, with my feet up in the air. I groaned and rolled over and realized I had egg yolk on my backside.
Of course, there was no way that I could have made it to my house without anybody seeing me with egg on my butt and straw in my hair. No, Rudy stepped outside the back door just as I was coming out of the chicken house. He took one look at the hole in the roof and one look at me and shook his head and went back inside. He didn’t even ask me if I’d broken anything.
“Hey,” I said five minutes later, standing in the kitchen. “I could have broken something. Don’t you care?”
“I figured if you had, you would have said something.”
“Rudy!”
“I decided a long time ago to stop asking what it is you’re up to. I figure it’s the only way to keep my sanity,” he said and poured himself a glass of cranberry juice.
“Rudy!” I said.
He walked into the living room and sat down to watch cartoons with Matthew. I followed him.
“Hey,” I said. “If Lenny Kravitz comes knocking on the door, I’m outta here. I bet he’d ask me if I broke something.”
“Right,” Rudy said. “You have egg on your butt.”
“I can’t believe you’re just going to sit there. I think I bruised my tailbone.”
“Grown woman standing on a chicken house … I figure you deserve it.”
I stalked off and picked up the phone. Rachel was talking to Riley on the extension. I came in just as he said something sweet and she giggled. “Get off the phone,” I said. “I need it.” Rachel made a whiny noise and told Riley she’d call him back later. I dialed, and after two rings Colin picked up his cell phone.
“Hello?” he said.
“Call off your dogs.”
“What?”
“The guys you’ve got spying on the mayor,” I said. “Call them off. Really, Colin, this race isn’t that important.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Colin. Because of you, I think I just broke my tailbone.” I slammed the phone down and then hobbled off up the stairs to change my clothes. I murmured under my breath about my husband’s lack of concern, but really, anybody who knows me knows that I have put my husband through … some trials. Okay, I’ve put my husband through hell sometimes—but never without a really good reason.
I pulled my shirt over my head and glanced out my bedroom window. I saw the man who had been in Bill’s backyard run along the side of our house and cut across our yard. He got into a dark-colored four-door car and, glancing over his shoulder at my house, sped away. He was in a serious hurry. He kicked up gravel, and the back end of the car shimmied all over the street.
What the hell?
The phone rang, and I picked it up. “Torie,” Colin said, “I’m not sure, in the name of all that is sacred, what I have to do with your tailbone, but I’d just as soon not know. And I don’t have anybody watching the mayor. Does he have somebody trespassing on his property? Should I send over a squad car?”
