Authors: Sue Ann Jaffarian
Chapter Nine
EVERYONE HAS A favorite and least favorite holiday. My favorite is the Fourth of July. My least favorite is any holiday that requires me to spend time with my family, with Mother's Day topping the list.
When I was about thirteen, my mother insisted on a divorce. She was an alcoholic with ideas of grandeur and given to fits of depression. I wasn't happy about the split, but it put a stop to the horrendous fighting and, for that, I was glad. Following the break-up, I saw my father a few times a month. After he remarried, I hardly saw him at all.
A few years later, I came home from high school to find my mother's things packed and gone. There was no note left behind, just half-open drawers and a sink full of dirty dishes. I kept going to school, trying to pretend everything was normal. She was just away, I told myself. She went to visit someone and forgot to tell me, I said to my reflection in the mirror every morning before school. Three weeks after she left, I finally called my father. That was almost thirty years ago. To this day I still don't know if she's alive or dead. My father is reluctant to speak about it. My stepmother takes every opportunity to remind me of it.
After my mother's disappearance, I lived with my father and stepmother, until I was old enough to move out on my own. I remember clearly counting the days.
Mother's Day is a two-pronged fork of fire for me. One, it reminds me that my own mother took a powder. Two, it reminds me that my father married Gigi.
I've tried to politely bow out of these holiday functions, but my father gets his feelings hurt every time I try. He seems to forget that they're his family, not mine. I'm not the one who vowed for better or for worse.
My father hadn't married well when he married my mother. With Gigi, he hit the bottom of the barrel. The woman hates me for the single reason I am my father's child from a prior marriage. When I lived with them, she treated me like an indentured servant. My father, Horten Grey, is a nice enough guy with the spine of a jellyfish and a few bricks missing from his load. But for all his frailties, he loves me and I love him, and it would hurt him to his very core if I just vanished like my mother.
He's seventy-nine now and Gigi is eighty-one. Gigi has two children from her first marriage. The eldest is Dee, who is sixty-three. Gigi's son JJ is sixty. Gigi's family not only reads the
National Enquirer
, they're the sort who believe it. Get the picture?
With a fake smile worthy of a greasy politician, I showed up at my father's house with a cake freshly purchased from the grocery store. Dee took the cake from me as I entered the kitchen area and all but tossed it on the counter. I knew it would never be opened and eaten. Nothing I ever brought or made was. Dee's husband and family were nowhere to be seen. Neither was Nonnie, Gigi's ninety-nine-year-old mother, and the only one in the family I liked. But I didn't expect to see her since she was in a rest home. JJ, wearing an undershirt and dirty khaki shorts, was slouched in the living room watching TV. A can of Coors occupied one hand, the other hand dangled around his balls. My father was asleep in his recliner.
I fought the urge to run screaming to my car and drive non-stop to Montana.
"Where's your family, Dee?" I asked instead.
"At home, where do you think?" she snapped, a cigarette hanging from her mouth. "I'm a mother, too, you know. Only came over here 'cause Ma would pitch fit if I didn't."
"Who'd have a fit?" It was Gigi. With hair dyed the color of cotton candy and worn in a similar shape, she shuffled into the kitchen on spindly legs. Her freshly powdered face and sharply arched eyebrows were straight out of clown college.
"You, Ma. I was just telling Odelia how you'd have a fit if she didn't make it over today."
I glowered at Dee, but said nothing. Her specialty was lying, especially if she could shift the blame to me in the process. She lived less than two miles away and seldom visited or called her mother. I lived forty miles away and was usually the one on the hook when something went wrong around the house. I also suspected I was the only one who regularly visited Nonnie in the rest home.
"Well, it's the least she could do, considering I took her in after that no-good mother of hers left her flat."
I wanted to remind Gigi that I was right here in the room, but since she was looking straight at me as she made the rude comment, I didn't bother. Instead, I bit my tongue and walked into the living room, hoping to rouse my father.
I kissed his grizzled cheek. He moved slightly, then opened his eyes. A small smile crossed his face when he recognized me, and he reached up to stroke my chin. That alone had been worth the trek on the freeway.
He wasn't happy and I knew it. Gigi and her family dominated him like playground bullies. Her children berated him to his face. Once they made the mistake of doing it in front of me. Only once.
"How are you doing, Dad?"
He looked puzzled, then perked up and gave a little laugh. Reaching up to his left ear he turned on his hearing aid. Most of the time he had it off. It was the only way he could get any peace.
"How are you doing?" I asked again, pulling up a chair near him.
"Good, dear. You look so pretty today. You always look so pretty." He beamed at me, flashing a smile that showed off the fact he still had most of his own teeth.
"Thanks, Dad. You ole flatterer."
"Hey, Odelia, what's the story on that friend of yours?" The question came from JJ, who was still slumped on the sofa.
JJ was currently living with my father and Gigi. He had been divorced for over twenty years and his children lived back east somewhere. None of them wanted him. He hadn't held a steady job since I'd known him. Instead, he scratched out a meager living by working the angles, always looking for the easy way out. He gambled, cheated, ran scams, anything to get his hands on a few dollars. Anything to avoid an honest day's work.
If his question referred to Sophie, I wasn't in the mood to discuss it. This was the type of stuff Gigi and her brood thrived on. They would make a meal out of this at my expense. I ignored the question.
"Hey, I said," JJ persisted, "what's with your friend, Sophie?"
"She died recently, JJ," I said bluntly.
"Died, hell! She blew her friggin' brains out! And right on the Internet. A friend of mine saw it."
I wanted him to shut up. "Have another beer, JJ. You need it."
"Who died?" my father asked.
"Somebody dead?" Gigi hollered, racing as fast as she was able into the room. "Who? Who died? Who?" She sounded like an owl on speed. Dee was right behind her. Gigi turned around and clutched at her daughter. "Oh God, Dee, someone died."
"What?" my father asked, adjusting his hearing aid. "Did someone die or not?"
"A friend of mine did," I said loudly, aiming for his left ear.
"Yeah, some porn slut friend of Odelia's blew her brains out," JJ added, raising his voice above the others.
I shot him a scowl, sorry he was too old to be shipped off to military school.
Each participant in the debate spoke louder than the last to make sure he or she was heard. The din was growing, making my head hurt.
"A friend of yours?" asked Gigi. She turned her attention back to Dee. "I bet it was that little colored gal she's so chummy with."
My father tapped my arm to get my attention. "Did I ever tell you about the time I was in the army? Saw a lot of people die in the war."
Much more of this and I'd be blowing my brains out. Right here, right now.
On the wall behind me hung a black velvet and neon colored rug depicting John F. Kennedy and the White House. It had been there for as long as I could remember. I suddenly pictured it spattered with thick red liquid and lumpy gray matter. Being the sick puppy I am, the imagery seemed fitting and logical, and made me feel better.
Hoping to head off any more wild assumptions, I decided to make a statement. I stood up and addressed the inmates of the insane asylum, holding out my arms as if directing traffic.
"Quiet, everyone, please," I began with a shout, as if trying to be heard over a hundred people. "My friend Sophie London, not my friend Zee Washington," I announced, directing the last few words at Gigi, "committed suicide last Sunday. I did not know she operated an adult web site. I repeat, I
did not know
about her web site." The last statement was made to JJ.
"Web site?" Gigi asked. "That one of them sex things on the computer?"
I hung my head in despair. The idea of grabbing my elderly father, slinging him over my shoulder, and racing out of the house suddenly crossed my mind. Like rescuing a child from a burning building, you don't think about it, you just do it. It might even snare me a medal from AARP.
"Yeah, Ma," JJ told her with a grin. "This friend of Odelia's, some big, ole, fat blonde, stripped in front of a camera. And for money."
Gigi looked horrified. She stared at me as if I were the one with the porn site. "Now why in heaven's name would any man pay to see a fat girl naked?"
"Ooooooooh," said Dee, "that's gross and disgusting. I could see a man paying to see a slim, pretty girl."
"Sophie was very beautiful," I said loudly to Dee.
Pausing while they bantered ignorantly, I got a grip on myself. I didn't need to defend Sophie, myself, or anyone else to these louts. They were off and running again, and I was helpless to stop it. Might as well be a toddler trying to halt a runaway train.
"Odelia," Gigi said laughing, "girls like you can't even get a man to look for free. What made your friend think any guy would pay to see her?"
"More like paying to see a circus side show, if you ask me," said JJ, scratching his privates.
"No wonder that girl killed herself," Dee said with a clucking sound. "I'd kill myself, too, if I got that fat."
While they were cackling and feeding off of Sophie's corpse like vultures at a banquet, I bent down to kiss my father goodbye.
I had been there long enough.
His eyes were red and wet.
Chapter Ten
MY SKIN WAS crawling and tight after I left my father's house. I felt encased in a rubber wet suit two sizes too small on a hot day. It was how I usually felt after time spent with my step-family.
Instead of going home, I decided to head over to Sophie's. At least I could continue sorting and labeling items. The work, depressing as it was, would keep my hands busy. I was afraid, if left on my own, I'd inhale half of the supermarket's inventory of Ben Jerry's ice cream.
With Sophie's radio playing in the background, I made a considerable dent in the packing. Later, I dashed out and brought back a grilled chicken sandwich and a vanilla shake from the closest drive-thru restaurant. During this break, I called Greg. As I had expected, he wasn't home, this being Mother's Day and all, but I left a message asking him to call me on my cell phone if he got home soon. He called about an hour later and eagerly accepted my invitation to come by.
I had invited Greg over to help with some of the office stuff, particularly the computer. It was also an awkward and very amateur test. My trust level in Greg Stevens was about eighty-five percent to the good, but there was still room for error. He had said that he'd never met Sophie. That also meant he had never been to her home. The murderer, if there was one, would have been here before.
It was my plan to watch him closely, to observe any spark of recognition or familiarity when he entered the house. So far, he was passing. When I intentionally failed to provide the address, Greg asked for it. Then he asked for general directions from the freeway. It either meant he was telling the truth, or that he was a criminal on his toes, so to speak.
I was in the kitchen wrapping dishes when the door bell rang about thirty minutes later. In spite of my trap, I felt my insides leap at the thought of seeing Greg again. I scolded myself. He's much younger than I am, and, let's not forget, a viewer of Sophie's sex site. And a possible murderer. I liked the man, no doubt there, but cautioned myself to keep the fantasies on the back burner. At least until I was one hundred percent sure he wasn't the murderer.
Even with these other obstacles out of the way, he was in a wheelchair. I had never been attracted to a man in a wheelchair before, and wasn't sure how I felt about it deep down inside. His comment about the disabled and the overweight being treated in similar fashion had played itself over in my mind a few times. Perhaps it was true to a certain extent. While many people consider the overweight targets for ridicule, the disabled are often treated with pity and misguided condescension. But I also reminded myself that, with a lot of hard work, I could change my weight to some degree. Greg would never be able to change his situation. But opportunity for improvement aside, in general, neither are treated as true equals with valuable skills, capable of significant contributions. Both are feared as personal possibilities or punishments to be rained down like the plagues of Israel.
There, but for the grace of God, go I.
A thought suddenly smacked me upside the brain. If Greg was the murderer, I had invited him here, to be alone with me at the scene of the crime. I stopped in my tracks in front of the door. Was a murderer on the other side, separated from me by only a few inches of wood and paint? How stupid could I have been? I looked around, feeling very vulnerable.
The door bell rang again. This time in two staccato blasts.
"Odelia," I told myself in a barely audible whisper, "you've really gotten yourself into a mess."
I did a quick study of my predicament. Dashing out the back and hiding in the shrubbery became a distinct possibility. Then I took stock of the positive aspects of the situation. Greg was in a wheelchair. And even I could out-run and out-maneuver a man who couldn't walk.
"Odelia, you gonna outrun a bullet, too?" I asked myself in a hushed tone.
I heard voices from the other side of the door. Voices, in the plural. I breathed a sigh of relief. Before I could unlock the door, the bell rang again. This time the blast was long and pleading. Whoever it was seemed eager to come inside.
Opening the door a bit, I peered out and found myself face-to-face with a small and varied crowd of three. Greg was there, sitting in his wheelchair. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on the outcome of his visit, Sophie's house didn't have a series of steps up to the front door. Next to him, sitting obediently, was Wainwright, who wagged his tail politely when he saw me. The third party was Iris Somers. She was talking a mile a minute to Greg. I caught the word beams here and there.
I groaned inwardly, hoping none of my annoyance escaped my lips.
"Greg, have you met Sophie's neighbor, Iris Somers?" I asked with false perkiness.
"Just now," he said, his eyes pleading with me for rescue.
I stepped aside. Wainwright trotted in first. There was a small lip from the landing up to the main floor of the house. With his guidance, I gave Greg a bit of assistance to get over it, amazed at how easily the chair responded to contact. It was compact and lightweight, the metal tubing painted in a bright purple, black, and silver design. It was the type of wheelchair I'd seen athletes use.
Once he was inside, I quickly stepped into the frame of the doorway, blocking Iris' entrance. I thought about slamming the door in her face, but didn't. Doors don't slip twice. That would be too much of a coincidence. And I certainly didn't want my dark side exhibited to Greg. She wasn't carrying her parasol today. Instead, she was wearing a hat, a bonnet with a brim, entirely covered in foil. Her head resembled a turkey about to be shoved into a moderate oven for a few hours of roasting.
"What can I do for you, Iris?" I asked, dispensing with formalities and using her first name. Even I heard the frost in my voice.
She sighed her signature sigh. "The beams," she said simply.
I didn't answer, just looked at her blankly. Maybe if I ignored her, she would dismiss me as a fool and go away. It was worth a shot. I glanced back at Greg, who was just behind me. He was listening, but his head was also turning around looking at the place. To me, he looked like someone seeing it for the first time. It was a good sign and helped me relax.
"The beams," Iris said again. She looked behind me and addressed Greg. "The rays from these home security systems are very dangerous, you know. I've incurred quite a few doctors' bills because of this system, and she," Iris said, pointing a knobby finger at me, "doesn't do anything about it. Just like her dead friend."
Greg visibly bristled around the edges. It reminded me of the way Seamus reacts when irritated. Just as quickly, I saw Greg ease up. He propelled his chair closer to the door, positioning himself beside me.
"In the future," he said to Iris with calm authority, "if you feel you are being injured by the security system, please report it to the alarm company. It's their system, their issue."
"I have. After dozen of complaints, they finally sent someone out to check on it. But he didn't do anything." Iris repositioned her finger in Greg's direction. "Those beams are what caused your friend to kill herself. They get into your brain, mixing it all up."
"Please call the company," Greg said again firmly. "And stop bothering Odelia with this nonsense. She has enough on her mind."
He retreated his chair a bit and gave me a sign with his head to shut the door. I followed his direction, being careful not to slam the solid piece of wood as I wanted. Just as the door started closing, I caught Iris' last words.
"At least last weekend, the alarm guy wasn't so rude."
My head jerked toward Greg. His eyes, round with surprise, found mine and locked. I yanked the door open.
"Iris," I called out.
She was already halfway down the walk heading for the gate. She turned when she heard her name.
"The alarm guy was here last weekend?"
She didn't say anything, just looked at me.
"Well, was he?" I asked again, my voice taking on a tone of urgent demand.
Greg reached out and touched the small of my back lightly. Then he took over.
"Iris, forgive us," he said, smooth as silk. "We didn't realize someone from the alarm company had stopped by. When exactly was he here?"
She looked at Greg and smiled coyly from under her silver headdress. Her gaze moved to me and she scowled. She looked back at Greg and addressed him in her usual soft yet firm voice. "He was here Saturday. As soon as I saw the truck, I came out to speak with him. He said he came by to check the system."
"Did you see him with Sophie London?" I asked.
Iris Somers rolled her eyes at me. Clearly, she thought me the village idiot. Maybe my initial plan was working too well.
"No, she wasn't home. He said he'd have to come back. He came by Sunday morning, too, but he wasn't here long."
I placed a hand on Greg's shoulder and squeezed gently. He continued with the delicate interrogation. "Iris, did the police talk to you after Sophie died?"
"Yes, they came by. I told them I heard the shot. Well, I didn't know it was a gun shot at the time. I was in bed suffering from a migraine, from the beams, of course. They had been very active the night before." She looked at me defiantly. "I told the police about the beams. I told them how Ms. London refused to stop them."
Under my hand, I felt Greg lean forward. "Did you tell them about the alarm guy?" he asked her.
Iris had to think about that. "I don't think so. I told them about hearing a loud noise. Then I showed them where the beams from the system shoot into my property. Right after that, they told me they had enough information."
I wanted to strangle her. The police probably figured she was useless as a witness upon hearing about the damn beams. I imagined yanking on one of the imaginary beams and twisting it around her scrawny neck, tying it into a big bow to go with her parasol and foil bonnet. This demented woman definitely did not bring out the best in me.
"Think about it, Iris," Greg gently coaxed. "Do you remember what time the alarm serviceman was here?"
She pursed her lips. I was sure she was whirling the question around in that beam-damaged brain of hers.
"Not exactly."
"Was it before or after you heard the shot?"
"Before I think. No, maybe right after. Hard to tell since I didn't know what I'd heard was a gun shot." She gave it more thought. "But I think it was before."
Greg thanked her for her help, and assured her that he would do whatever he could to stop the beams from injuring her again.
With a final look of triumph tossed my way, and a flick of her foil-wrapped turkey head, Iris Somers walked down the walkway and out the gate. Greg and I watched her as she turned left on the sidewalk and proceeded to her own walkway next door.
I was happy to see the back of Iris Somers. And even more glad that Greg had been here to deal with her. He had handled her well, much better than I could have.
That over and done with, I turned to see Greg wheeling himself deeper into Sophie's house, looking around as he made his way. Suddenly I wished we hadn't been so diligent with the dismantling and packing. I was sorry he hadn't been able to see her home as she had kept it, with her sweet personal touches and warm-hearted mementos. The living room and kitchen were both scattered with boxes, filled and well labeled.
He stopped in the dining room, his attention focused on something specific. Coming up behind him, I saw he was looking at a portrait of Sophie, a small fine oil in a simple but elegant frame. The artist had truly captured her beauty and personality. It was the item she'd left him in her will.
"She was so beautiful," he whispered with reverence.
"She left you that painting," I said, equally as quiet. "You can take it home tonight, if you wish."
He looked at me and beamed. "Really?"
The pleased look on his face made me happy, but something else was nagging at me. "Greg, why would an alarm company send out a service guy on a Sunday morning?"
He thought about it. "Maybe for an emergency."
"You mean like a repeated false alarm? Or something like that?"
"Probably."
"My townhouse has an alarm, and my service is with the same company as this house. Normally, they would have made an appointment with Sophie before coming out on Saturday, and Sophie wasn't the type to blow off appointments."
I headed for the office. Greg followed.
The cleaning people had done an excellent job of scrubbing the walls and the carpet. There was just a ghost of a stain left on the floor behind the desk. That I could live with, if I kept my head up. The Van Gogh prints and the chair were gone, disposed of by the cleaning company. Everything had been wiped down. Books and papers were set aside, awaiting review.
Sophie had used a combination appointment and address book. The police had gone through it shortly after finding her. Now it was closed and on the desk. I picked it up and turned to last weekend. Saturday and Sunday were on the same side, each allotted a half page. There were no entries for either day.
"What do you make of that?" I asked Greg, showing him. I held the book up, but he wasn't paying attention. His eyes were on the floor, studying the shadowy stain on the carpet.
He smiled weakly and looked at the calendar. After quickly noting the absence of an entry, he shrugged. "Maybe she didn't remember the service guy was coming. Or maybe it wasn't important enough to write down."
"Perhaps," I said. "Or she didn't know he was coming."
"The company could've dispatched him just to get Iris Somers off their back."
"But on a Saturday and Sunday?" I dug into my memory. It had been quite a while since I'd had any reason to call the company for service. In fact, I hardly ever remembered to set my system. "If this was just a routine check on the system, they'd have done it during the week. Sophie worked from home usually, so scheduling on a weekend would not have been necessary. And I doubt if they would view a crackpot like Iris as an emergency."
I started pulling open desk drawers. So far, we had only gone through Sophie's things in the other rooms. I wanted to call the alarm company, but I knew they would never speak to me about her account. I would have to find her abort code for them to release any information. Or I could contact Detective Frye.
I wasn't ready to do the latter. The police had determined the case a simple suicide. Asking them to look into a security company technician, who might have been here before Sophie pulled the trigger, didn't seem such a good idea. Especially since our only witness was a nut with self-proclaimed electrocuted brains.