Till Beth Do Us Part (A Jamie Bravo Mystery Book 2) Read online

*

  Ma leads the way inside the house, holding the cage out in front of her like she’s leading a parade. Fruit Loops screams, “Oh, what a beautiful morning!” over and over and over.

  Once inside, I take the cage from Ma and drape the table cloth back over it. That shuts Fruit Loops up. At least for now.

  “What do you think?” Ma asks.

  I look to where she’s Vanna-Whiting a banner that’s strung across the dining room archway. It proclaims: “Welcome Home!” Ma has taken a black magic marker and added “Tonino” at the end of the banner in scrunched-up letters.

  Ma must’ve noticed me staring at it. “I wanted to personalize it.”

  “He’s coming home already? He just had surgery.”

  “Yes, well, he’s making himself a bit of a nuisance with the nurses and they think he’ll do okay at home. I guess there’s a shortage of beds. Or so they say. I just have to change the dressing twice a day and watch for signs of infection. They’ll send a home care nurse by every morning. I’ll be supervising his behavior.”

  “With your cooking he’ll be up and around in no time. Where’d you want the cage?”

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.” Ma looks around. “How about in the bay window. Let me move the macramé hanger. This spider plant has about had it. Do you know I’ve had this plant since you were in high school?”

  “Yeah, it’s about time to retire it,” I say. It’s covered in yellow, spotty leaves and looks like a biohazard. In other words, it looks like how I feel.

  Ma removes the macramé hanger from its hook and I hang up the unwieldy cage. I take off the tablecloth. Fruit Loops cocks his head this way and that, taking in his new surroundings. “I think he likes it here,” I say.

  “Maybe I should add ‘Fruit Loops’ to the welcome home sign,” Ma says. She hands me the macramé hanger and the gross spider plant. “Go give Mr. Spider Plant a nice burial. Juniper and Griffin should be here soon. She’s bringing me some new cups. She says they’re all the rage right now.”

  “You want me to give a plant a funeral?”

  “Why yes, Jamie. We can’t throw away such a sturdy soldier of a plant just willy-nilly. Dig a hole by the azalea bush and say a few words of the dust-to-dust variety. You can do that, can’t you?”

  “Sure.” Let this go on record as one of the weirdest days I’ve ever experienced. I walk out the back door carrying the mutant spider plant just like Ma had carried the bird cage earlier. The door is barely shut behind me when I hear Fruit Loops sing, “It’s a hard knock life.”

  I go to the shed to find a shovel and notice that some things have been changed around. The shed looks as if it’s in the throes of a remodel. Sawdust is everywhere. There are two old leather recliners and an apple crate serving as an end table between them. A dorm fridge is still in its box. It seems that Pa is doing a little redecorating. And now that his best friend is here, he’ll be one happy man. No more women telling him to turn down the ballgame, or not to smoke that cigar inside. He can watch CNN and ESPN to his heart’s content. The shed is going to be a man cave.

  I dig a shallow hole and bury the plant. I bury it with the macramé hanger. That way it’ll have someplace to hang in its afterlife. I reverently bow my head and whisper, “Oh, Mr. Spider Plant you have served this family well and I hope in your next life you get to be a more exotic houseplant like an orchid or something. Amen.” I cross myself and put the shovel back in the shed.

  When I get back into the house, Juniper and Griffin have arrived. Juniper has brought her laptop computer and is powering it up. Griffin stands in front of the bird cage. He’s ecstatic. He’s bouncing up and down on his tiptoes and saying, “A talking bird. He sings, too!”

  Fruit Loops opens his beak and says, “Pop. Six. Squish. Uh uh. Cicero. Lipschitz.”

  I throw the tablecloth back over him before he sings the entire “Cell Block Tango” from Chicago.

  Griffin moans, “Why’d you do that for, A.J.?”

  He calls me A.J. It stands for Aunt Jamie. “Go outside and play,” I say, mimicking what my mother always said to me when I asked a question she didn’t want to answer.

  Juniper pushes Griffin toward the back door, saying, “You heard your aunt. Go play outside.”

  I lift the hem of the tablecloth and stare into Fruit Loops’ little beady eyes. “Don’t push it, Mister. I buried a plant and I won’t hesitate to bury you, too.”

  “That bird is going to give me a headache,” Ma says. “He’s louder than Ethel Merman.”

  Juniper crosses her arms over her chest and suggests, “Perhaps the bird should live in the man cave.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” I say.

  “You’ve seen Pa’s newest hobby?” Juniper asks.

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t exactly call it nice digs. It smells like sawdust and gasoline.”

  “Men don’t care about smells or nice curtains. They just want someplace to belch and smoke and not get yelled at,” Ma says.

  “I don’t want to burst anybody’s bubble, but it might get kind of hot out there for a bird,” I say. I didn’t want the bird, but I also didn’t want his blood on my hands.

  “Your father can put in a window-unit air conditioner,” Ma says.

  “And in winter?”

  “We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” Ma says.

  “Okay, I hereby bequeath the bird to you. He can be the mascot of the man cave.”

  “I get to visit Fruit Loops, right?” Griffin asks, searching his mother’s face.

  “I thought you went outside,” I say.

  Griffin shrugs. “I came back. It’s more exciting in here.” He turns back to his mother. “Can I, Mom, can I visit Fruit Loops in the man cave?”

  “All right, but on one condition: no smoking cigars.”

  At that moment, a terrible rumbling noise emanates from Fruit Loops’ cage. “What was that?” I ask. I’ve never heard Fruit Loops make that noise. I remove the tablecloth.

  Griffin laughs and jumps up and down with glee. “He farted! Fruit Loops farted!”

  “Birds don’t fart,” I say like I have any idea.

  As if to prove me wrong, Fruit Loops lifts a leg and lets one rip for at least three seconds. It’s the longest fart I’ve ever heard.

  “I could be wrong,” I say.

  Juniper looks up from her computer where she had typed in, ‘Do birds fart?’ She says, “Apparently, they do fart.”

  Ma puts her hands on her hips. “A farting bird. That’s all I need. Like living with two gassy old men isn’t enough, now you bring me a farting bird.”

  I shrug. “How was I supposed to know? It’s not like he came with a warning label.”

  “Do I have to make a sign? No farting in my kitchen?”

  Juniper and I giggle. I say, “Maybe Pa can wood burn that for you. You can hang it over the stove.”

  Without looking up from her computer screen, Juniper says, “Guess what? Fish can fart, too.”

  “Does it make bubbles in the water?” Griffin asks.

  “This is modern technology?” Ma says. “We have computers now so you can read about farting?” She throws her hands in the air, muttering, “Madonna mia.”

  Juniper points at Griffin. “You. Outside.”

  Griffin sighs and drags his feet out the back door.

  I pull Veronica’s little red book out of my pocket and sit at the dining table across from Juniper. “I need you to do a background check on somebody for me.”

  “Who?” Juniper asks.

  “Veronica’s friends.”

  Ma immediately perks up. Ma loves Veronica. She thinks she’s perfect for me. She always wanted me to marry a lawyer or a doctor. Veronica fits the bill. Ma chooses to ignore her gender. She’s a successful lawyer and that’s all that matters.

  “How is Veronica?” Ma asks.

  “Not so good, Ma. She’s in jail.”

  “Jail!” Ma crosses herself. “What happened?”

  I tell Ma and Junip
er the whole story. They listen, wide-eyed. Then I pat Veronica’s address book and say to Juniper, “I need you to do that background check thing you do. See what people are up to and who might want to destroy Veronica’s life because she’s such a…” I was going to say “bitch” but because my mother still slaps me for bad language, I instead say, “Because she’s not a nice person a lot of the time.”

  Ma covers her ears with her hands and leaves the room, saying, “I don’t hear this.” She thinks if she covers her ears and can’t hear something that makes it not true. She did the same thing to me when I came out as a lesbian. She refused to listen so I had to surprise her with that bit of news. I jumped out of a closet and yelled, “I’m a lesbian!” Ma about had a heart attack.

  So, when I say I came out of the closet, I mean I literally came out of the closet.

  “Do you think Veronica killed this woman?” Juniper asks.

  I shake my head. “Veronica’s may be a liar and she cheats at card games, but she’s not a murderer. I think the real murderer is in her address book. Somebody is framing her.”

  Juniper is confused. “Why would Veronica have people who hate her in her address book? I thought that was for friends and business contacts?” Juniper asks, already creating a list of Veronica’s contacts.

  “Not in Veronica’s case. This book goes back quite a ways.”

  “Like how far back?” Juniper flips to the front of the book. “High school?”

  “At least. Maybe junior high.”

  “How come you have this book? Shouldn’t it be with the police?”

  “I have twenty-four hours before I have to give it back. My friend is a homicide detective. She’s going to be working on the case. And Veronica hired me to figure out who framed her.”

  “I see.” Juniper types more. “I’m making a list for your records. Sit down and read them off for me. It’ll be faster.”

  The list consisted of seven hundred and thirty-one names.

  “Who has that many contacts? And why are they written down? Why doesn’t she have them in her computer or phone?”

  “She believes in hard copies of everything. And she doesn’t trust people like you.”

  “What do you mean people like me?” Juniper asks, staring at the computer screen.

  “People with extraordinary computer skills like… hackers.”

  Juniper rolls her eyes. “I’m not a hacker. I just know my way around the internet.”

  “Sure, it’s like you're the Marco Polo of the virtual world.”

  “Precisely. I’m going to show you how and then I’m going to give you written instructions on how to access these sites.”

  Terror must have been written across my face because Juniper took one look at me and adds, “Travis can help you. You might have to make him your assistant.”

  “Never.” Especially not with his boyfriend in tow. I couldn’t stand all the stretching and flexing.

  “Do it on a temporary basis. A case-by-case thing. Jamie, this is a huge list. You’re going to need help or Veronica will rot in prison by the time you’ve even narrowed this down.”

  I look at the list glumly. Juniper’s right. I need Travis’s help. “Temporarily,” I amend.

  Two hours later, I leave my mother’s house loaded down with copy paper, discs, a flash drive and instructions. I was, however, minus one farting bird.

  Twenty

  By the time I get back home, Travis and Michael have transformed the loft into a crime room. They have wheeled in a dry-erase board the size of a classroom chalkboard. They have put up bulletin boards, set up a computer, a fax machine, a copier and a printer on a desk I’ve never seen before. A row of new office chairs are set up around a new boardroom table. My former living room—furniture, TV, coffee table—are now stacked in the far corner of the room.

  “What the hell happened?” I ask.

  Michael steps forward and excitedly explains, “We decided you needed help with your new case. We’re your new team. I designed this crime room. Do you like it?”

  “It’s called a war room,” Travis says testily. “And you were supposed to let me tell her the news. I’m the number two. You’re number three.”

  “Sorry,” Michael apologizes. “I just get so excited.”

  “War room?” I ask.

  “Don’t you love the sound of that?” Michael asks. “It sounds so. . . so. . .,” here his hands begin to flutter like little birds at the end of his arms, “Bold. Dramatic. Daring.”

  Travis clears his throat. Michael heeds the warning and put his hands behind his back, saying “Sorry.”

  “Where’d all this stuff come from?” I ask.

  “We rented it,” Travis explains. “By the week. It’s rent to own, we can take it back if we want.”

  “How much --”

  Travis interrupts, “I put it on your credit card. No worries, you can bill Veronica for it.”

  I put my hands over my ears just like my mother. If I didn’t hear how much it cost maybe it wouldn’t cost anything.

  Travis holds up a red three-ring binder. “I’ve set up a log book for all the billable hours. I did put Michael and me on the book as your assistants. We’ll figure out a rate of pay later.”

  I plop down in one of the new office chairs at the new conference table and stare at the new office equipment. The dry-erase board has Veronica’s name on one side and Beth Ellen’s on the other. The cork bulletin board has news releases copied off and pinned up. One is from the Lakeland Press and the other is from the internet newsfeed. According to both, local opinion is already against Veronica. That doesn’t surprise me. People always love to throw stones at people who are more successful than they are.

  After a few minutes of deep breathing and taking it all in, I decide Veronica does need my help. And I do need an assistant. Maybe two assistants. And if we’re going to do this thing up right, we do need a war room. I look at Travis and Michael’s expectant faces.

  “What about work?” I ask.

  “Burt owes me about three-months’ vacation and Michael is between shows. So it’s all good. Veronica’s paying for us so there will be no fiscal loss as long as you can cover the utilities for this month.”

  Good thing I have the divorce case to work on. That should cover the utilities and I’ll have enough left over for groceries.

  “And Michael is going to stay here so we’ll be at your disposal twenty-four seven,” Travis says. He looks hopeful and scared at the same time. He’s never had a live-in boyfriend before. This is big.

  “Alright. Let’s get to work.”

  Travis and Michael can barely contain their excitement. Travis claps his hands and Michael does a quick pirouette.

  “I have a really big project to start with.”

  “Oh, goody,” Travis says and sits at the table. Michael stands behind him and discreetly does butt clenches.

  I dump all the stuff Juniper gave me and the address book itself onto the table.

  “What’s this? Is it our first clue?” Travis asks, snatching up the address book.

  “Be careful. That’s evidence.”

  Travis holds it reverently. Michael peers over his shoulder. “Evidence? Is it the big black book of suspects?” Travis asks.

  “It might be. It’s pretty much everyone Veronica has ever known.”

  Travis flips through several pages of the book.

  “What are those asterisks next to some names?” Michael asks.

  “And look here, these names have lines under them,” Travis says.

  “And some of the lines are color-coded,” Michael adds, pointing at one page.

  “Does Veronica have a key for it?” Travis asks, flipping to the front and then the back of the address book.

  “A key?” Michael asks. “Like a diary kind of key?”

  “No, like a map has a key that says a dotted line is this kind of road, another line means train tracks, stuff like that.” Travis says.

  “Let me see that,” I s
ay. I hadn’t noticed all that earlier because I was too engrossed in just reading off the names, numbers, and addresses to Juniper.

  The boys were right. There is some kind weird notation by a lot of the names—especially the older ones. “Some of the asterisk people are women that Veronica dated,” I explain. “I know that much.”

  “Okay, that solves part of the cipher,” Travis says.

  “It’s not a cipher. I’ll just ask her when I see her.”

  “But who knows if she’ll tell the truth. People are naturally secretive. She might not want you poking around in her business,” Travis says.

  “We’ll cross-reference them,” Michael says. He grabs a magic marker and holds it poised at the dry-erase board when he suddenly stops. He offers Travis the marker. “I think you should do the honors of writing the first thing on the board. After all you are the number two.”

  Travis flushes with pleasure. “You’re my dreamboat lover.” He gives Michael a peck on the cheek as he takes the marker. He looks at me. “Are you ready? This is the beginning of the biggest case of your career. Thank you, Veronica, for giving us this opportunity to serve.”

  “She didn’t do it out of the kindness of her heart.”

  Travis studies me. “You don’t think she did it, do you?”

  “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

  “I think it’s best we operate under the assumption that she’s innocent,” Travis decides. He turns to the board and writes: decipher cipher - Jamie.

  “Next, we need to sort out who might be a possibility and rule out those people that can’t be,” I say.

  “How do we do that? I mean, what’s the criteria?” Michael asks

  I give it some thought. “Let’s start with the people currently close to her, work our way out and end with people who are also living out of state. We can revisit that one with travel records if we find a person of interest.”

  “Oh, person of interest. I love all this detective talk. It’s so sexy,” Michael says.

  “Okay, so we need to trim down the address book into useable chunks of info,” Travis says.

  My cell rings. Before I can even say hello Frankie’s gruff voice says, “Angela Morelli. Kit Kat Klub. Ten minutes.”