Major Crimes (8 page)

I also asked Freddy to see if he could find a phone number for Randy or his parents. Freddy agreed to call me back when he found something.

“Thanks, Freddy.”

“Ten-four.”

Chapter 10

Bryce

Eight seventy-four Sandals Avenue was an hour and fifteen minute drive from the shore to Hamilton Township in Mercer County, New Jersey. We pulled up to the red brick ranch located on a corner lot in suburbia.
Hide in plain sight, I guess.
We parked on a side street a block away. Chelsey got out of the Tahoe while I slid into the dry clothes from Bonnie. Bonnie’s husband was the same size as me, so that was one thing that worked out. I joined Chelsey and we walked to the house. We trudged up the driveway and rang the doorbell.

The woman who answered was no more than four feet six inches tall. “Are you Freddy’s friends?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Come in. Don’t mind the mess. I can’t get around anymore to clean this place up. I’m Geraldine. Geri for short.” Geri wore a muumuu and walked with a limp.

“It’s fine, really.” I stepped over one of the toys that peppered the foyer. Chelsey trailed behind me. We introduced ourselves and followed the sixty-something year old a few steps to the family room.

“Frank! Frank!” she hollered.

A deep male voice from another room responded to her calls. “What?”

“Freddy’s friends are here.”

“Well, did you let them in?”

“Of course! What do you think I am, anyway?”

“You don’t want to know what I think!”

Geri shook her head. “Don’t mind him. He’s always a grump.”

It was humorous how they were screaming at each other from different rooms instead of waiting to get into the same room to talk. Chelsey was smirking also. She must’ve thought the same thing.

Geri led us into the kitchen where a six foot tall, bald man with a large belly was stirring the largest pot of tomato sauce I’d ever seen. The sauce splashed his wife-beater tank as he stirred. His shoulders could’ve used a good waxing.

“Have a seat.” His baritone voice was menacing. Chelsey immediately complied with his demand. I took my time sitting. He may have intimidated Chelsey, but not me.

“You want something to drink?” Geri asked.

“Uh, sure.” I was thirsty after the long ride.

“There’s some soda there.” Geri pointed to a few twelve-pack boxes near a garage door. “And there are more cups out on the porch.”

Out on the porch?
“Uh, okay.” Chelsey and I headed toward the boxes of soda, scooting past Frank along the way. I saw a second door near the soda boxes. I looked at Geri. “Is this the porch?”

“Yeah, grab a bunch of cups. They’re right on the table.”

Opening the door, I found their stockpile. The porch was completely enclosed—just another room off the back of their house. Not what I was picturing. I hadn’t expected the hordes of supplies. Four cases of creamed corn. Eighteen boxes of pasta. Six cases of crushed tomatoes. More paper towels than I’d bought in my lifetime. The industrial pack of red plastic cups. Chelsey and I exchanged glances. I wondered if they had robbed Sam’s Club. I realized why Freddy had sent me to his brother’s house—he knew there’d be enough food and supplies for us to hide out for a while. Maybe even for eternity.

There were also plenty of toys fit for a toddler on the porch. I got an image in my head of little kids around the neighborhood crying in fear when the hairy-shouldered ogre took their toys away. I laughed to myself.

Chelsey couldn’t stay long because of her daughter, but I knew I’d be fine hanging here. Plenty of eats and extra time to solve Archie’s murder. And with Freddy on board, he could do a lot of the investigation without having to hide himself in the process. I feared how much his bill would be when he was through.

With a stack of red plastic cups in my hand, we traipsed back into the kitchen. On our way, we grabbed two cans of soda—a birch beer for me and a diet soda for Chelsey. I sure wished it was something stronger.

Chelsey tried to break the awkwardness of the situation by striking up a conversation with Frank and Geri. “We really appreciate you helping us out like this. Are you survivalists?”

“Survivalists? What? You mean like that TV show? Are you kidding? Do we look like a couple of people that would survive on that show with no food?” I wondered if Geri was referring to her age, physical condition, or fondness for her stash.

Frank turned his head toward Geri. “Speak for yourself. I was in the service. You couldn’t survive yourself out of a paper bag.”

“Nobody asked you, and you couldn’t survive nowadays with those bad knees of yours.” Geri rotated her head back to me. “He thinks he can still do what he did when he was twenty.”

I nodded for a lack of something to say. I didn’t know how to take these two. Was it a love/hate relationship? Having my own situation to deal with was enough for me, I didn’t need to be in the middle of any more drama.

“I just meant that you have so many things stockpiled.” Chelsey looked at me. I shrugged.

Frank didn’t look up from his cooking. “ShopRite had their Can Can sale last week. Do you know how much crushed tomatoes normally cost?”

Gazing at the pot on the stove that nearly reached the hood, I wondered how many cans of crushed tomatoes it held. Probably a lot.

Chelsey tried at a conversation again. “Do you mind me asking for your sauce recipe? It smells so good.”

“Wait until you taste it.” Frank retrieved a second oversized pot from the cabinet beneath the stove. He filled it with water and placed it on a burner. “I make the best gravy you’ve ever had. I’ll write it down for you after dinner.” He grabbed an industrial sized container of salt and poured some into the water without measuring first. “And you know, gravy repeats on a lot of people, but not mine. See, the trick is the baking soda. A lot of people add sugar to reduce the acid, but that ruins the flavor. It really must be a sin to enjoy your own cooking so much.”

I silently wondered if calling tomato sauce “gravy” was a Jersey thing or an Italian thing. And the sauce repeating on people…was that what I had to look forward to once I was Frank’s age? If nothing else, Frank took my mind off my problems for a minute.

Frank retreated to the porch and returned with three pounds of pasta. I wondered who else he was feeding with all that pasta. He poured each box into the boiling pot of water. “So who is after you? Do I need to get my old hunting rifles out of the basement?”

“That won’t be necessary. No one knows we’re here.” I took a bite of the buttered piece of Italian bread that Geri handed to me.

“That’s a fresh spolet from People’s Bakery. They were out of sticks. How is it?” Geri asked.

“Good,” I mumbled with a full mouth.

“What sorta trouble you in?” Frank asked.

Chelsey was about to respond when Geri interrupted. “How much pasta did you put in?”

Frank turned and looked at her. “Three pounds, why?”

“Is that gonna be enough?”

“Why isn’t that enough? There’s a pound for me, a pound for Bryce and a pound for you and Chelsey.”

It seemed insane to me that Frank was cooking an entire pound of pasta for himself and another pound of pasta for me. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. Bonnie was half Italian and from what I had heard from Chelsey, it was as if she continually cooked for half the population of New York City.

“Linda and the kids are coming,” Geri replied.

I wondered who they were. I hadn’t realized there would be an entire house of witnesses seeing Chelsey and me. Wouldn’t Freddy send us somewhere to hide that would be more…well…like hiding?

“You didn’t tell me that!” Frank shouted.

“I
did
tell you that!”

“No, you didn’t!”

“Yes, I did! You don’t listen.”

“You never said that.” Frank retreated to the porch. Three more boxes of pasta went into the boiling water. It was amazing to me that six pounds of pasta fit into the pot. I didn’t own any pots that large. As a bachelor, I didn’t own many pots period. I suddenly understood why Frank had so many boxes of pasta on the porch. Two more dinners in this house and the boxes would be gone.

The front door crashed open. Six youngsters bounded into the kitchen. Chaos broke out. Shouts of, “Hi, Poppy. We’re hungry!” coupled with arguing, screaming, stomping, grabbing, pushing, pulling. I would’ve run for my life if I could’ve gotten out of the room, but I was blocked in. There was no more wondering where all the toys came from. There was no more wondering who Linda and the kids were either. Certainly not another set of fugitives like Chelsey and me. Just one big, happy family. Or a chaotic one, at minimum.

* * *

Chelsey and I ate in silence—it was like being at a rock concert, but without the music. Screaming over the crowd and losing my voice wasn’t something I felt like doing. With all the whining, complaining, and chatter of six children, I made the decision to buy the mammoth-sized box of Trojans. Not that I had been getting any as of late—but I wasn’t about to take my chances. And if I was ever lucky enough to marry the girl of my dreams, I was fine with one or two little ones. Possibly three. But under no circumstances six. Three was even pushing it after seeing this crowd in action.

The youngest of the bunch scooped up a few pieces of pasta. Instead of shoveling them into his mouth, he used his spoon as a slingshot and flung its contents across the table at his older brother. He wasn’t a bad shot. Chelsey was showered with tomato sauce. I couldn’t help but laugh. She gave me the evil eye as she wiped an orange blob off her face.

Frank jumped up from his seat, ripped the spoon from the little one’s hand and screamed, “Go get on time out!” I was fairly sure the house shook when his voice thundered the command.

The little one wailed, rubbing both eyes, and hustled to a corner of the room, where he stuck his nose. No one else stopped talking during the incident. Studying Chelsey, I wondered if there would be a day where we were sitting at a table, eating pasta, with a gaggle of our own kids. Was she
the one
?

Geri and Linda talked over the children. They extended a few pleasantries our way and asked a few questions—how we liked the food, how far we traveled to get there, and what we did for a living. Since they seemed genuine about not knowing who we were, I figured they neither subscribed to a newspaper nor watched the news.

“How long have you two been together?” Geri asked out of the blue. I almost choked on my rigatoni.

Chelsey was quick to answer. “We’re not.”
A little too quick!

I knew she had a boyfriend months ago, but I didn’t get the impression it would last. She certainly hadn’t mentioned the boyfriend to me and hadn’t seemed worried about checking in with anyone besides her daughter, so I believed they were no longer together. But this was certainly an opportunity to find out.

“Chelsey has a boyfriend.”

“Really? You two seem so…oh, I don’t know, what’s the word I’m searching for…?”
Perfect together?

Geri glanced up at the ceiling, searching for the right words. “Oh, I don’t know…infatuated with each other? You give each other those sideways glances…like you’re in bed together.”

It was Chelsey’s turn to choke on her rigatoni. Chelsey did, in fact, give me a sideways glance—but not in a loving way. She didn’t correct me about having a boyfriend, so I must’ve been wrong about her not having one. My instincts were usually dead-on. But not with Chelsey. I couldn’t read her as well as I could read others. My fondness for her clouded my judgment.

Chelsey finished chewing. “Just to be clear—we aren’t sleeping together.”

Geri shrugged as if she hadn’t believed Chelsey and asked us if we wanted more to eat. After three attempts at piling more helpings of pasta on our plates, Geri yelled out to Frank over the commotion, “Frank! The chicken! You’re going to burn it!”

Frank stood up from his seat, went to the oven, and pulled out a tray of chicken parmigiana fit for the midnight grand buffet on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship—the biggest of the fleet.

Leaning over, I whispered in Chelsey’s ear. “Perdue called. They want their chickens back.”

Rather than laughing, Chelsey looked panicked. I was sure she didn’t want to eat any more, but to refuse food in an Italian house would’ve been an insult of epic proportions.

“I thought the pasta was the main course,” Chelsey said to no one in particular.

Geri looked at her like she had three heads. “Oh no, honey. Did you think we would send you away hungry?”

“No one goes hungry in my house!” Frank puffed up his chest. He was certainly proud of his food.

When I finished eating, I discretely unbuttoned my jeans. I couldn’t breathe. I never ate so much in my life.

Geri and Linda cleared the kitchen table and brought out the dessert buffet. Cookies, brownies, cake, donuts, and ice cream. Though my food was about to burst out through my bellybutton, they weren’t taking no for an answer.

Chelsey’s skin tone almost matched her green eyes. She excused herself to go to the bathroom.