Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet (2 page)

I was on the phone with a healthy-sounding customer service representative named Herman
when Cookie walked in. She did that a lot. Walked in. Like she owned the place. Of
course, I was in her apartment. Mine was cluttered and depressing, so I’d resorted
to loitering in hers.

Cookie was a large woman with black hair spiked every which way and no sense of fashion
whatsoever, if the yellow ensemble she was wearing was any indication. She was also
my best friend and receptionist when we had work.

I waved to her, then spoke into the phone. “Declined? What do you mean declined? I
have at least twelve dollars left on that puppy, and you said I could make low monthly
payments.”

Cookie bent over the sofa, grabbed the phone, and pushed the end-call button while
completely ignoring the indignant expression I was throwing at her. “It’s not so much
declined,” she said, handing the phone back to me, “as canceled.” Then she took the
remote and changed the channel to the news. “I’ve put a stop to any new charges on
your Home Shopaholic store card—”

“What?” I thought about acting all flustered and bent out of shape, but I was out
of shape enough without purposely adding to the condition. In reality, I was a little
in awe of her. “You can do that?”

The news anchor was talking about the recent rash of bank robberies. He showed surveillance
footage of the four-man team, known as the Gentlemen Thieves. They always wore white
rubber masks and carried guns, but they never drew them. Not once in the series of
eight bank robberies, thus their title.

I was in the middle of contemplating how familiar they looked when Cookie took hold
of my wrist and hefted me off her sofa. “I can do that,” she said as she nudged me
toward the door.

“How?”

“Simple. I called and pretended to be you.”

“And they fell for it?” Now I was officially appalled. “Who did you talk to? Did you
talk to Herman, because he sounds super cute. Wait.” I screeched to a halt before
her. “Are you kicking me out of your apartment?”

“Not so much kicking you out as putting my foot down. It’s time.”

“Time?” I asked a little hesitantly.

“Time.”

Well, crap. This day was going to suck, I could already tell. “Love the yellow,” I
said, becoming petty as she herded me out of her apartment and into mine. “You don’t
look like a giant banana at all. And why did you cancel my favorite shopping channel
in-store credit card? I only have three.”

“And they’ve all been canceled. I have to make sure I get paid every week. I’ve also
funneled all of your remaining funds out of your bank account and into a secret account
in the Cayman Islands.”

“You can funnel money?”

“Apparently.”

“Isn’t that like embezzling?”

“It’s exactly like embezzling.” After practically shoving me past my threshold, she
closed the door behind us and pointed. “I want you to take a look at all this stuff.”

Admittedly, my apartment was a mess, but I still didn’t know what that had to do with
my card. That card was a tool. In the right hands—like, say, mine—it could make dreams
come true. I looked around at all the boxes of super-cool stuff I’d ordered: everything
from magical scrubbing sponges for the everyday housewife to two-way radios for when
the apocalypse hit and cell phones became obsolete. A wall of boxes lined my apartment,
ending in a huge mountain of superfluous products in one specific area of the room.
Since my apartment was about the size of a Lego, the minute amount that was left was
like a broken Lego. A disfigured one that hadn’t survived the invasion of little Lego
space aliens.

And there were more boxes behind the wall of boxes we could actually see. I’d completely
lost Mr. Wong. He was a dead guy who lived in the corner of my living room, perpetually
hovering with his back to the world. Never moving. Never speaking. And now he was
lost to the ecology of commerce. Poor guy. His life couldn’t have been exciting.

Of course, it didn’t help that I’d also moved out of my offices and brought all my
files and office equipment to my apartment. My kitchen, actually, making it completely
useless for anything other than file storage. But it had been a necessary move, as
my dad had betrayed me in the worst way possible—he’d had me arrested as I lay in
a hospital bed after being tortured by a madman—and my offices had been above his
bar. I had yet to discover what possessed my own father to have me arrested in such
an outlandish and hurtful manner. He’d wanted me out of the PI biz, but his timing
and modus operandi needed work.

Sadly, the bar was only about fifty feet north of my apartment building, so I would
have to avoid him when coming and going from my new work digs. But since I hadn’t
actually left the apartment building in over two months, that part had been easy.
The last time I left was to clear out my offices, and I’d made sure he was out of
town when I did so.

I surveyed all the boxes and decided to turn the tables on Cookie. To play the victim.
To blame the whole thing on her. I pointed at an Electrolux and gaped at her. “Who
the hell left me unsupervised? This has to be your fault.”

“Nice try,” she said, completely unmoved. “We’re going to sort through all of this
stuff and send back everything except what you’ll actually use. Which is not a lot.
Again, I would like to continue collecting a paycheck, if that’s not too much to ask.”

“Do you take American Express?”

“Oh, I canceled that, too.”

I gasped, pretending to be appalled. With a determined set to her shoulders, she led
me to my own sofa, took boxes off it, piled them on top of other boxes, then sank
down beside me. Her eyes shimmered with warmth and understanding, and I became instantly
uncomfortable. “Are we going to have the talk again?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Cook—” I tried to rise and storm off, but she put a hand on my shoulder to stop me
“—I’m not sure how else to say that I’m fine.” When she looked down at Margaret, who
sat nestled inside my hip holster, my voice took on a defensive edge. “What? Lots
of PIs wear guns.”

“With their pajamas?”

I snorted. “Yes. Especially if they’re
Star Wars
pajamas and your gun just happens to resemble a blaster.”

Margaret was my new best friend. And she’d never funneled money out of my bank account
like some
other
best friends who shall not be named.

“Charley, all I’m asking is that you talk to your sister.”

“I talk to her every day.” I crossed my arms. Suddenly everyone was insisting that
I seek counseling when I was fine. So what if I didn’t want to step out of my apartment
building? Lots of people liked to stay in. For months at a time.

“Yes, she calls and tries to talk to you about what happened, about how you’re doing,
but you shut her down.”

“I don’t shut her down. I just change the subject.”

Cookie got up and made us both a cup of coffee while I stewed in the wonders of denial.
After I came to the realization that I liked denial almost as much as mocha lattes,
she handed me a cup and I took a sip as she sat next to me again. My eyes rolled back
in ecstasy. Her coffee was so much better than Aunt Lil’s.

“Gemma thinks that maybe you need a hobby.” She looked around at the boxes. “A healthy
hobby. Like Pilates. Or alligator wrestling.”

“I know.” I leaned back and threw an arm over my eyes. “I considered writing my memoirs,
but I can’t figure out how to put seventies porn music into prose.”

“See,” she said, elbowing me. “Writing. That’s a great start. You could try poetry.”
She stood and rummaged through my box-covered desk. “Here,” she said, tossing some
paper at me. “Write me a poem about how your day is going, and I’ll get started on
these boxes.”

I put the coffee cup aside and sat up. “For real? Couldn’t I just write a poem about
my ultimate world domination or the health benefits of eating guacamole?”

She rose onto her toes to look at me from behind one of my more impressive walls.
“You bought two electric pressure cookers? Two?”

“They were on sale.”

“Charley,” she said, her tone admonishing. “Wait.” She dipped down then popped back
up. “These are awesome.” I knew it. “Can I have one?”

“Abso-freaking-lutely. I’ll just take it out of your pay.”

This could work. I could pay her through my Buy From Home purchases, though that might
not help her keep her lights on or continue to have running water. But she’d be happy,
and wasn’t happiness the most important thing in life? I should write a poem about
that.

“You do realize that to use any of this stuff, you have to actually go to the grocery
store.”

Her words shoved me deeper into the pit of despair often referred to as buyer’s regret.
“Isn’t that what Macho Taco express delivery is for?”

“You’ll have to buy food and spices and crap.”

“I hate going to the grocery store.”

“And you’ll have to learn to cook.”

“Fine,” I said, letting a defeated breath slip through my lips. I had a fantastic
flair for the dramatics when needed. “Send back everything that involves any kind
of food preparation. I hate to cook.”

“Do you want to keep the Jackie Kennedy commemorative bracelet?”

“Do I have to cook it?”

“Nope.”

“Then it stays.” I lifted my wrist and twirled the bracelet. “Look how sparkly it
is.”

“And it goes so well with Margaret.”

“Totally.”

“Pumpkin butt,” Aunt Lil said.

I looked up from my Jackie Kennedy commemorative bracelet. Now that she knew she was
dead, I would never have to go through that surge of panic at the prospect of her
insisting on cooking for me for two weeks straight. I almost starved to death the
last time. I held up the bracelet. “Do you think this bracelet is too much?”

“Jackie goes with anything, dear. But I wanted to talk to you about Cookie.”

I looked in Cookie’s direction and frowned in disappointment. “What has she done now?”

Aunt Lil sank down beside me and patted my arm. “I think she should know the truth.”

“About Jackie Kennedy?”

“About me.”

“Oh, right.”

“What in the world does this monstrous machine do?” Cookie asked from somewhere near
the kitchen. A box appeared out of nowhere, hovering unsteadily over a mountain of
other boxes.

I smiled in excitement. “You know how sometimes we order coffee and it comes with
that incredible foam on top?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that machine does the magic foam trick.”

Her dark head popped up. “No.”

“Yes.”

She looked at the box lovingly. “Okay, we can keep this. I’ll just have to carve some
time out of my schedule to read the instructions.”

“Don’t you think she should know?” Aunt Lil continued.

I nodded. She had a point. Or she would have if Cookie didn’t already know. “Cook,
can you come here a sec?”

“Okay, but I’m working out a system. It’s in my head. If I lose it on the way over,
I won’t be held accountable.”

“I can’t make any promises.”

She sauntered over, shaking another box at me, a disturbing kind of joy in her eyes.
“Do you know how long I’ve wanted a salad spinner?”

“People actually want those?”

“You don’t?”

“I think that was one of those four
A.M.
purchases where I’d lost all sense of reality. I don’t even know why anyone would
want to spin a salad.”

“Well, I do.”

“Okay, so, I have some bad news.”

She sat in a chair that catty-cornered the sofa, a wary expression on her face. “You
got bad news since you’ve been sitting here?”

“Kind of.” I tilted my head discreetly to my side, indicating a
presence
.

Cookie frowned.

I did it again.

She shrugged in confusion.

With a sigh, I said, “I have news about Aunt Lillian.”

“Oh. Oh!” She looked around and questioned me with a quirk of her brows.

I gave a quick shake of my head. Normally, Cookie would play along, pretending she
could see Aunt Lil as well, but since Aunt Lil had finally caught on to the fact that
she could walk through walls, I didn’t think that would be appropriate. I put a hand
on hers and said, “Aunt Lil has passed away.”

Cookie frowned.

“She’s gone.”

She shrugged in confusion. Again.

“I knew she’d take it hard,” Aunt Lil said by my side. She sniffled into her sleeve
again.

I wanted so badly to roll my eyes at Cookie. She was not getting my hints. I’d have
to try harder. “But you know how I can
see the departed
?”

A dawning emerged on Cook’s face as she realized Aunt Lil had caught on at long last.

I patted her hand. Really hard. “She’s here with us now, just not as you will remember
her.”

“You mean—?”

“Yes,” I said, interrupting before she could give anything away. “She has passed.”

Cookie finally grasped the entire concept. Not just a little corner of it. She threw
a hand over her mouth. A weak squeak slipped through her fingers. “Not Aunt Lil.”
She doubled over and let sobs rack her shoulders.

Subtle.

“I didn’t think she’d take it
this
hard,” Aunt Lil said.

“Neither did I.” I looked on in horror as Cookie acted out that scene from
The Godfather.
It was even more eerie from this close proximity. “It’s okay,” I said, patting her
head. Really hard. She glared through her fingers. “Aunt Lil is with us incorporeally.
She sends her love.”

“Oh, yes,” Aunt Lil said with a delirious nod. “Send her my love.”

“Aunt Lil,” Cookie said, straightening and looking beside me. Only on the wrong side.

I nodded in Aunt Lil’s direction again, and Cookie corrected her line of sight.

“Aunt Lil, I’m so sorry. We’ll miss you so much.”

“Aw, isn’t she the sweetest thing? I always liked her.”

With a smile, I took Aunt Lil’s hand into mine. “I always liked her, too. Until about
fifteen minutes ago.”