Long Memory (2 page)

The cop looked at the license then flipped it over to examine the back as if there might be more information there. Then he flipped it back over. “It says here your name is James A. Leoni and you’re from Atlanta, Georgia.”

James bit back a sarcastic reply. Through the window he saw the blonde carefully balancing the books over his grandmother’s wrists and patting her shoulder before wandering toward the door. On the way, she paused to scoop up her phone and shove it in the pocket of her denim shorts. She had great legs. “Violet Bennetti is my maternal grandmother,” he explained. “I’m visiting her for a few days from Georgia.”

“I know where I know your name from.” The cop fanned James’s license. “You were on the news. Some big real estate scandal.”

James kept his mouth shut. Trying to explain always made things worse. The blonde was studying him like a bug under glass.

“Interesting.” The cop turned to the blonde. “Beth, you don’t know this guy?”

“No, I don’t.” Beth folded her arms. She was cute in a baby bunny kind of way. Big brown eyes, sweet face, a little too curvy. Not his type, but he could appreciate the view. Once he figured out what was going on.

“He says he’s Mrs. Bennetti’s grandson,” the cop said. “He’s the guy–”

“James Leoni,” James intervened before something unfortunate popped out of the cop’s mouth. “Donna’s son.”

“Donna?” Her eyes widened then narrowed. The usual reaction to his mother’s name. “I’ll call her.” She flipped open her phone and hit a preset button.

James turned to the cop. “You come here often?”

“What? Oh, sometimes. Mrs. Bennetti is pretty old. Beth needs help sometimes. We stop around during the school year to make sure everything’s all right with her and Miss Forrester. I had Mrs. Bennetti in the fifth grade.” The cop beamed and looked about fourteen.

Fifth grade. Of course. Everyone in town had had his grandmother in fifth grade. Or wished they had.

“Well, Donna, you know you have to tell me these things.” The blonde scowled at the floor. “Nonie doesn’t remember anything. This is why I need power of attorney.” Her scowl deepened. “Fine. Fine. Fine. Whatever you say, Donna. Good-bye.” She snapped the phone shut. Her scowl melted into a smile directed at the cop. James had to admit, she gave good smile. “I’m sorry, Jimmy. It appears this was a false alarm. This really is Nonie’s grandson, and he really is coming to visit.” Her eyes slid to him, hardening as they did. “For a couple of weeks.”

“Good. I’m glad everything is okay.” The cop nodded, handing James his license. He stepped backward off the porch. “If you need me, call me. I can be right over. I’d do anything for Mrs. Bennetti.”

The blonde smiled and watched the cop get back in his car. By the time he pulled out to the street, her smile had vanished. “I suppose your mother sent you here to spy on me.”

“Spy?”

A book hit the floor.

“Nonie, you can’t take that off.” She turned away from him, all evidence of annoyance gone from her voice. A regular Jekyll and Hyde. “It’s dinnertime. Would you like to have dinner?”

“Dinnertime?” his grandmother asked. “Better have dinner then.”

The blonde took the other book off his grandmother’s arm and stood back while she stood up.

James retrieved his suitcase from the porch and set it in the hall. The blonde had settled his grandmother at the kitchen table with bread, sliced ham, cheese, lettuce and a bottle of mustard arranged in front of her. Nonie concentrated on building her sandwich on a plate. The blonde bent over in front of the refrigerator giving him a perfect view of her rear end. Wider than most of the women he went after, but nice, very nice. She stood up and turned around with a bowl of potato salad in her hands and a furious glare in her eyes.

“I can’t believe Donna sent a spy. You know, I’m still fighting with that magazine.” She set the potato salad in easy reach of Nonie and stepped back with her arms folded.

“What?”

“That magazine Nonie got talked into buying. I reported them to the Better Business Bureau for preying on the elderly. Despicable behavior. And I’d really like to know what your mother thinks she’s doing.”

“My mother?”

“You know your grandmother can’t take care of herself. She needs to have someone here all the time to keep an eye on her. You can tell your mother that I’m not going to steal anything.”

Nonie made a noise between a whimper and a snort.

“What’s the matter, Nonie?” the blonde asked.

“Who is that?” Nonie pointed to James with a butter knife.

“That’s your grandson, James. Donna’s son.”

“Donna?” Nonie frowned. “Where is Donna?”

“She’s in Arizona with Tony.”

Nonie looked unhappy with that answer, but she turned back to her sandwich.

“Can I ask you a question?” James asked.

The blonde rolled her eyes. “The first of many, no doubt.”

“What’s your name?”

She blinked. “My name? Beth Wilson. I live downstairs and keep an eye on Nonie.” She pursed her lips as if she had more to say, but didn’t think it was a good idea. She had great lips too. Nice and full. Utterly natural. What those lips said didn’t make sense though.

“You live downstairs? No. Can’t be. Some battleaxe named Elizabeth–”

Beth arched one eyebrow. “Yes?”

“My mother said–”

The arch grew more pronounced. “Yes?”

James felt cobwebs growing in his throat. “Elementary school teacher,” he choked out.

“Now that we’ve been properly introduced, I’ll leave you to your grandmother. I need to go next door and check on Jean.” The blonde–Elizabeth–Beth, started past him toward the door. “Don’t let her take off that bandage. I’m tired of cleaning blood off everything.” The door banged closed behind her.

James stared at it for a minute. His mother had mentioned the woman living in Nonie’s basement in less than glowing terms. The terms she usually used were “pushy” and “greedy”. So far the pushy part was right. He’d have to see about greedy. He turned back to Nonie, who was trying to pull off the bandage, but when she noticed him, she stopped.

“Who are you?”

Chapter 2

Beth knocked at Jean’s door before opening it. “Hello, Jean. How are you doing today?”

“I’m fine. What were the police doing over there?” Jean shuffled out of the hall.

“You saw that?”

Jean grimaced. “I heard it.” She sat down in a chair facing the front window. Her house was spare with nothing extra on the floor to trip over. “What happened?”

Beth dropped onto the couch. Nonie couldn’t remember, and Jean couldn’t see. They were a perfect pair. “Can you believe Donna sent her son from Georgia to check up on me?”

“I can. What I can’t believe is that the boy came. Those two didn’t get along too well.”

“They didn’t?” Beth sat up. James Leoni hadn’t looked like a momma’s boy. Tall, broad shouldered. Quarterback material. Brown hair, intelligent brown eyes. He’d have to be smart if he was Nonie’s descendant.

“That woman is a shrew. Driving away three husbands and a son like that. Aggravating. I suppose he’s running away from his own troubles though.”

Beth tuned back in when she realized Jean wasn’t going to launch into her favorite rant topic, Donna. “His own troubles. Who? James?”

“Yes, don’t you listen to the news? James was working for that big real estate guy in Atlanta. The one who took all those people’s money. James was the one who noticed the irregularities.” Jean’s expression turned smug.

“They said that on the news?”

“Well, no. I’m sure of it though. He did accounting for the man, and that’s where the problems were discovered. We raise honest kids. Even if it does skip a generation once in a while. I can’t believe Donna is fighting you on the power of attorney. You’ve had mine for five years, and you haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I just wish we’d gotten Nonie to sign the papers when she still could.” Beth slouched back on the couch. “We could have avoided all this bickering.”

“I doubt that. I’ve known Donna all her life. Nothing would have avoided the bickering. She loves bickering. Lives for bickering. Bicker, bicker, bicker. How do you think she went through three husbands?”

“Donna said he was going to stay for a few weeks.”

“Who? James? He’s good looking, you know.”

Beth rolled her eyes. She needed more good-looking men in her life like she needed–well, she didn’t actually have any men in her life right now, but between Nonie’s dementia and Jean’s near blindness and diabetes, Beth didn’t have a lot of free time for husband hunting. Besides, James had a sign around his neck that said “out of your league.” Guys who looked like that were not interested in chubby schoolteachers. “How do you know?” she shot back. “You can’t see anything.”

“I have an excellent memory.”

Beth snorted, making Jean laugh. “I’d better get back over to the house. James has probably let Nonie tear off her bandages again. Did you eat dinner?”

“Of course. As soon as the clock chimed and right before the siren started. Was it Jimmy again?”

“Yeah.”

“Little stinker. I can’t believe he’s a policeman. I was so sure he’d be on the other side of the bars when he grew up. How was the hospital last night? Did you get a nap? Do you want me to come over and watch her so you can have the evening off?”

At the mention of the word “nap”, Beth’s jaw stiffened into a yawn. Most of last night had been spent trying to keep Nonie from ripping the bandages off her face and hunting for nurses to rebandage her when she did. “James will be there. I was trying to sleep on the couch before he showed up. You were right. Putting books over Nonie’s arms was a great idea. Every time she reached up, I heard the book fall and caught her before she ripped the bandages off.”

“Good. I’ll come over in a little bit. I wouldn’t mind chatting with that nephew of mine. Imagine coming here at his mother’s beck and call. How pathetic.”

Beth stood up and started for the door, but stopped. “Jean, why wasn’t he here in the first place? Donna is in Arizona with Tony. Why didn’t he come back to Weaver’s Circle to take care of his grandmother instead of letting someone he doesn’t know do it?”

“Don’t know why he would. He wasn’t raised here. Who in their right mind would leave a big, exciting city to come back to the middle of nowhere to care for a couple of shriveled old bats like us?”

Beth pursed her lips. One of the nice things about Jean’s extreme nearsightedness, she couldn’t see expressions. She never knew when one of her zingers hit too close to the wrong target.

* * * *

Beth peeked through the basement door into the kitchen the next morning. She’d fallen asleep last night and woken up around midnight. Everything was quiet so she just rolled over and went back to sleep. Getting Nonie into bed was easier than getting her up in the morning. Nonie was already sitting at the table with a cup of coffee in her hands, wearing yesterday’s clothes. They weren’t that dirty anyway. Beth could let that go for a day. Tomorrow she’d have her change. “Good morning, Nonie. How did you sleep?”

“Fine.”

James shuffled into the kitchen, scratching his head. His hair stuck up at wild angles and he wore a pair of plaid boxer shorts.

Beth poured him a cup of coffee. “Good morning.”

He grunted.

“Not a morning person?”

James buried his face in the coffee cup.

“Nonie sleep all night?”

James nodded.

Beth started another pot of coffee. The way James was sucking it down, there wouldn’t be any left for Jean when she came over. “You sleep well?”

“Fine.” His voice was gravelly with disuse. It shouldn’t have been charming, but she found herself smiling. “It’s very quiet here.”

To hide the smile, she focused on Nonie. “Did you brush your teeth and put on deodorant?”

“I don’t know.”

That could mean anything. Beth went down the hall to Nonie’s bathroom and checked her toothbrush. It was dry. Chances were very good she hadn’t used deodorant either. Beth returned to the kitchen. Leaning over Nonie’s shoulder, she checked her coffee cup. It was empty. “Nonie, go brush your teeth and put on deodorant.”