The Saucy Lucy Murders (25 page)

“Aunt Gladys—”

“Damned if the people in this town aren’t just as pea-brained as always,” she continued as she came and sat at a table next to Akiko. “Bunch of superstitious morons, the lot of them.”

“Aunt Gladys, please. This is no time to worry about the past,” Lexie said.

“Everyone hereabouts called me a whore and a tramp when I was a girl,” Aunt Gladys went on, ignoring her, tapping her red-nailed arthritic fingers on the plastic tabletop. “Said I was no good, when really they were all just green around the gills because I was a real looker. They don’t understand it when people have ambitions or don’t fit their cookie-cutter mold. Moose Creek Junction is nothin’ more than a hole-in-the-wall-town. Leslie, you should move away.”

Akiko looked around the room. “This house have bad aura,” she said. “I feel it. I give your place a Japanese crensing to chase away evil spirits, OK?”

“A
cleansing?”
Lexie asked.

“Hai,
that’s what I say. A cleansing—a special prayer. I say it right now.” Akiko closed her eyes, bowed her head and started chanting softly in her native tongue, hands pressed together.

A loud crashing sound exploded around Lexie, then something slammed into her head. Pain shot through her temples as the sound of tinkling glass splattering against the floor assaulted her ears.

Everything went black.

L
EXIE
, L
EXIE
…”

As if from a million miles away, Lexie heard a voice urgently calling her. Someone prodded her shoulder. “Wh … what?” she asked, her mind foggy as the docks of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf at midnight. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think straight.

An agitated voice shouted, “Aliens! We’ve been invaded by a bunch of douche bag aliens! They’ve bombarded us with one of their evil offspring!”

That’s Aunt Gladys, Lexie thought as she struggled to the surface of consciousness.

“Lexie, wake up!”

Lexie dragged her eyes open to see Sister Lucy crouched down beside her holding something to her forehead. The cool, hardness of the towel revealed it was full of ice. It felt good in a way, but also bad because the ice pack pressure caused such intense pain to radiate through her frontal lobes she wouldn’t
have been surprised to see pink elephants dancing on the bistro tables in spike heels.

Pushing herself to a sitting position, Lexie grabbed for the pack. “Give that to me,” she snapped at Lucy and pulled the towel away from her face. Red splotches covered the terry cloth.
Blood.
The pain returned with even more intense throbbing. Lexie groaned and pressed the ice pack against her forehead to keep the bleeding under control. “What happened? What hit me?”

“Good question. Something flew through the window and slammed into your head.” Lucy’s voice shook and her face was creased with concern. “Thank the good Lord you’re all right. I was worried.”

“Rook! Rook!” Akiko crouched in a corner with one arm raised defensively over her face and the other arm outstretched, her index finger pointing toward the middle of the floor where a round, dark green object covered in yellow paper had landed. Several of the bay window panes near her table were broken, making it look like a gaping mouth full of shark’s teeth. Chunks of splintered glass scattered messily across the floor and a warm breeze filled the room.

The age-spotted skin on Aunt Gladys’ arm flapped as she shook her fist at the broken window. “You’ll never take me alive, you little puke-green bastards! I know Elvis personally. He’ll cut off your heads and shove ’em down your throat if you touch a hair on any of our heads!”

Lexie decided Aunt Gladys seemed fine except
for being pretty pissed off and back to Looney-Toons land.

“Akiko, are you all right?” Lexie rose to her feet with Lucy’s assistance, glancing at the small Japanese woman.

Akiko took several deep, shuddering breaths and stood, tears in her wide brown almond-shaped eyes.
“Hai.
My eyes closed when I say special prayer and sudden-ry, ah, how you Americans say …” She hesitated a moment as she searched her vocabulary. “Ker-plew!” She threw her hands in the air to demonstrate.

“It was probably just a bunch of bored teenagers looking for trouble.” Lexie moved next to Akiko and patted her on the back. Figure the odds Akiko would ever come back to the café. She and Lucy had probably lost their last and final customer. Just peachy.

Akiko again pointed at the thing on the floor. “Rook at that—what is it? It not rook so good, Rexi-san.”

Lexie hadn’t paid much attention to the object that had nearly knocked her into yesterday, but she now examined it closer. “Oh, my gosh, it looks like a—”

“Grenade, grenade!” Aunt Gladys shoved past Lexie and did a sort of running shuffle toward the door. “Fire in the hole! Retreat! Everyone out!”

Lexie, Akiko, and Lucy wasted no time following Aunt Gladys. Outside, standing in the middle of the street, the ladies looked at each other in utter surprise.

“What do we do now?” Lucy asked.

“Call the police.” Lexie fished the cell phone
out of her jeans pocket and dialed 911.

Everything after that was a blur.

Otis was first to arrive and he did not look happy. What else was new? His deputy, Cleve Harris, trotted dutifully alongside wearing a rumpled uniform on his thin frame, looking as though he’d slept in it for five nights in a row. He had a long, pockmarked horse face and bug eyes with a mop of stringy brown hair on top of his head. Lexie had known him in school and he had always been the king of nerds. Looked like he still held the title. And he still reminded her of Goofy; all he needed was floppy ears and a long dog’s schnaz.

Harris trundled up and hooked his thumbs in his belt. “Hey, ladies.” He tipped his hat at everyone and gave Lexie a dopey look, big teeth dull and yellow. “How’s it goin’, Lex?”

Otis hitched his striped sheriff’s pants over his portly belly as he came up behind his deputy. Then he popped Harris on the back of his head. “Not too good, numbskull. Otherwise she wouldn’t have called us. Get to work.”

Notepad in hand, Otis questioned Lexie and Lucy while Harris questioned Aunt Gladys and Akiko.

When ambulances and fire trucks blazed onto the scene a short while later, sirens blaring, Lexie figured the neighbors would take up a petition to have her removed from the neighborhood. Peacefully or forcefully. As they all stood on their door stoops, observing the scene unfolding before their
eyes, they looked none too happy. Lexie had a good idea what they were saying. “That Lexie always did cause trouble and look what’s been going on! Nothing’s changed a bit.”

The police walked around gathering evidence while the bomb squad, dressed in special attire, went inside the house to investigate the grenade. The question in everyone’s mind was why the grenade hadn’t exploded. After the bomb squad had looked everything over, one of the men came out to talk to them. He said his name was Jake Cordova. He spoke in a deep, gravelly voice and had just a fringe of silvery hair on his head.

“It was a grenade, all right. A World War II-vintage Japanese grenade. It was too old to detonate. You folks were lucky.” He rocked back and forth on his heels, hands clasped behind his back. “Just the same, we’re taking it down to the lab for safe keeping.” To Lexie he said, “Your house has been given the all clear signal.”

“Thank you,” Lexie told him, still a little dizzy from the blow to her forehead.

“Japanese, eh?” Otis gave Akiko a hard look. “You know anything about this?”

Akiko’s hands fluttered to her throat. “Oh, no.”

“What about your husband? Maybe he collects this war memorabilia. Wasn’t he in the army?”

She shook her head.
“Hai,
Vietnam War. But he no do this. He go Westonville to buy new tractor parts. He not in town.”

“I’ll be by to question him anyway,” Otis said.

Cordova mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “I wouldn’t get too excited just yet, Sheriff Parnell. From the looks of everything this appears to be a prank. Maybe played by a disgruntled customer.” He pulled a piece of yellow lined paper from his breast pocket. “Take a look at this. It was rubber banded around the grenade.”

He handed the paper, splattered with the blood from Lexie’s wound, to Otis who read it, grunted and said, “Whether it was intended as a prank or as an assault, I’m getting to the bottom of it.” He handed the note to Lexie. Lexie looked it over and her mouth went dry and cottony.

Lucy took it from her, her face set in solemn lines.
“You will pay, you witch,”
she read aloud. She flipped the paper over and looked at the front again. “Hmm, this looks like it was written in nail polish.”

“Nail polish?” Lexie cleared her tight throat and glanced at the blue glittery brush strokes on the paper. “Must have been a woman who wrote it.”

“Maybe,” Otis said. “Or maybe a man with a nail polish fetish or someone just wanting to throw us off. It’s hard to say.”

An ambulance attendant came up to Lexie and touched her arm. She was a small, blond woman with a perky, upturned nose covered with freckles. “Ma’am, would you like us to look at that cut on your forehead?”

“Is my Aunt Gladys all right?”

The attendant nodded. “Mrs. Maplethorpe is sedated and someone’s taken her up to her room to rest.”

“I appreciate it,” Lexie told her.

Akiko made her apologies and left hastily. Lexie wished she could have sent her home with one of those apple pies and some of the stew. Otis told Cleve to go on home, and he pulled Lucy aside to lecture her in a stern voice. Lexie decided now was as good a time as any to have her wound attended to.

“Show me where to go,” Lexie told the attendant, followed her over to one of the ambulances and sat down on the tailgate. After wrapping a blanket around Lexie’s shoulders, the attendant took her vital signs, and began to poke and prod on her bruised forehead.

Hearing the roar of an engine, Lexie watched as a Jeep pulled up and parked nearby. Gabe stepped out and sauntered toward her, wearing his usual attire of jeans jacket, button down shirt, and Levis that hugged his long legs. “Just can’t stay away from trouble, can you, lady?”

“You know what happened?” she asked, catching a whiff of his spicy cologne.

He nodded. “Heard it on my police radio.”

Even though his words were harsh, Lexie saw the lines of concern crinkling at the corners of his eyes. She decided Gabe survived his line of work by putting up this tough-as-nails appearance. He witnessed too many awful things and couldn’t let the
world see how the crime and tragedy affected him, otherwise he might not be able to perform his duties. Indifference had become his fortress against the world.

“This time trouble came looking for me, Gabe,” she told him. “I was in my house minding my own business when someone threw a grenade through my front window.” She winced as the attendant put ointment on her cut and bruised flesh. “Guess I got in the way.”

“You’re lucky it didn’t go off.”

“That’s what the bomb squad guy said.”

“He was right.” Gabe folded his arms across his chest. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Yes. I just had an unexpected surprise, but I’m over it.”

“Do you want anything for the pain?” the attendant asked her, standing back and cocking her head to the side to examine her handiwork.

Lexie put up a hand. “No, I’m fine. I’ll take some aspirin later.”

“You might want something to help you rest,” Gabe commented. “Shock can do funny things to you. It could still settle in later.”

Lexie thought about it for a minute, then remembered her date with Jack. She wanted all her faculties about her when she met him at the Jefferson. “Honestly, Gabe. I don’t need anything.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Take care. Like I said before, keep your nose clean. We’re getting
close on this case and you need to keep a low profile.” He touched her hand lightly, sending a stream of sparks up her spine, then walked over to Otis and struck up a conversation, during which Otis handed him the note from the grenade. Lexie wondered what it was about Gabe that stirred her blood. She was certain it wasn’t good. The man condescended to her and she hated it. He was just doing his job, but she didn’t like being pandered to.

By the time Lexie was done with the attendant, Gabe had left. All the other emergency vehicles had disappeared and the ambulance took off as well. She joined Otis and Lucy, who immediately hugged her and patted her on the back.

“Go inside and get some rest, dear. I know I’m going home to put my feet up. We’ve all had quite an upset.”

“I agree. I’m definitely going to enjoy the time off tomorrow. I think I’ll stay in bed all day with my head under the covers.” Lexie knew it would be impossible, but it sounded good.

Otis indicated the broken front window. “You can use duct tape and a piece of cardboard until you get it fixed.”

“I’ll do that,” Lexie said.

“Maybe you girls ought to think about closing the café until the heat dies down,” he suggested. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “It’s not safe anymore.”

A wave of dizziness swept over Lexie and she
blinked, then stepped back to lean against the porch rail. “You don’t have to worry. Akiko was our only customer and from what I gather, everyone in town believes our family has a curse on it. Nobody wants to eat at the Saucy Lucy right now anyway.”

“Lexie, are you OK?” Lucy rested a hand on her arm.

“I think I just need to go in and rest like you said.”

After discussing the incident a few moments more, Otis and Lucy got in their family sedan and drove off, leaving Lexie standing on the Victorian’s porch in front of the broken shark’s teeth window, mulling over a lot of unanswered questions.

Once the dull roar in her mind quieted, Lexie went inside and cleaned up the mess, all the while wondering who would do such an awful thing. Had someone really intended to hurt her, or was it just a prank? Her head was really starting to hurt. She scrounged aspirin from a cupboard by the sink, took two and slugged them down with a glass of water. After she swept up the broken glass, she went into the pantry and found a roll of duct tape and a piece of cardboard.