The Saucy Lucy Murders (28 page)

“What in heaven’s name do you mean by that?” Lucy asked indignantly as she turned from the sink to glare at Aunt Gladys, carrot peeler held in mid-air.

Aunt Gladys cackled as she used her paintbrush to dab rich green color on a tree. “Take off your rose-colored glasses, girl. People are mean and ignorant. When they get even the slightest thing on you, they’ll tear you apart like a pack of wild dogs.”

“Moose Creek Junction is our home,” Lucy protested. “People wouldn’t hurt their friends and neighbors like that.”

“Lucille, your sister has been gone too many years to be one of them any more. To them, she is an outsider. They have no loyalty to her.”

Lexie had to agree with Aunt Gladys. Occasionally the old bag of wind actually had some wise counsel although Lucy didn’t think so.

“You’re delusional again,” she said. “I think it’s time for you to take a nap.”

Aunt Gladys stuck out her tongue at Lucy and made a farting sound.

Lucy snorted with indignance and turned back to the sink to peel carrots with a vengeance. “Lexie, if you would just go with me to church this Sunday, you would see how forgiving people are.”

Lexie sighed. “Sorry, I can’t. Jack and I are going fishing.”

“On Sunday?” Lucy was flabbergasted. “Really, what would Mother and Father think? Sunday is a day of rest.”

“Fishing is very restful,” Lexie said. “Besides, Jack is a wonderful guy. Mom and Dad would be happy for me.”

“I don’t know this Jack Sturgeon fellow, but he doesn’t seem like the best influence on you. Taking you out to cavort in the wilderness on a Sunday, no less.”

“Oh, leave her alone, Lucille,” Aunt Gladys called out as she lit up a cigarette and blew smoke into the air. “Your mother and father would have liked knowing Lexie’s enjoying herself with a nice
young man like Jack. Let her kick up her heels a little. ‘Make hay while the sun shines’, they say.”

Lexie frowned at Aunt Gladys and her cancer stick. She had all but given up trying to control the old woman’s smoking. It was impossible.

“You’re not much for maintaining decorum, are you?” Lucy asked Aunt Gladys.

Aunt Gladys blinked. “Maintaining
what?
If you mean do I like to have fun, you sure as hell better believe it. Now I know why your father named you after your mother. You are exactly like her. A friggin’ stick in the mud.”

Miffed, Lucy ignored Aunt Gladys and turned to Lexie. “If things get serious with this Jack fellow, he’ll need to join the church so you can be married there. You and Dan ran off to get a quickie Las Vegas wedding and that could have been part of the problem. The marriage was never a church sanctioned union.”

“Lucy, lighten up, will you?” Lexie finished chopping the last of the carrots and frowned at her sister. “We’re only dating. OK? Nobody said anything about a wedding.” Not yet, anyway, she thought.

Lucy pouted, her face melting into lines of defiance.

Lexie hated that look. It always meant Sister Lucy was on the warpath. “Just because you didn’t hand pick Jack Sturgeon to date me doesn’t mean he’s not a good man. Trust my judgment for once, will you?”

“You didn’t do so good picking out Dan, Lexie.”
Lucy’s lower lip quivered. “I don’t want to see you hurt again.”

“I’ll be all right. At the moment we need to worry seriously about our lack of customers. While I’m sure the homeless shelter loves it, we can’t keep giving all our leftover food to them. We’ll go broke. You have Otis to fall back on. I only have the poor house.”

Lucy nodded. “I’ll talk with my friends and encourage them to come back to eat at the café. Besides, I still haven’t been accused of anything and I’m part owner.”

Lexie patted Lucy’s arm. “That’s right.”

The telephone rang and Lexie seriously considered not answering. She was pretty certain it wasn’t a customer asking what their hours were. More than likely it was Barnard Savage, or another reporter from Westonville, or maybe even one from Timbuktu, asking more questions about Henry Whitehead’s murder.

“I’ll get it,” Lexie finally said, on the outside chance it might be someone ordering a pie or maybe a dozen cinnamon rolls. She picked up the receiver and put it to her ear. “Hello?”

Click.

Lexie slammed the phone down, furious.

“Another hangup?” Lucy asked.

Before Lexie could answer, the phone rang again. “What do you want? Why do you keep calling and hanging up? We’re getting pretty sick and tired—”

“Lexie?”

It was Jack.

Lexie felt completely ridiculous. “Gosh, I’m so sorry. I’ve been getting a ton of prank calls. I got one right before you called.”

“I understand,” he said. “Have you told the police?”

“Yes. My phone’s supposedly tapped. It drives me crazy that whoever is calling doesn’t stay on long the line long enough to be traced.”

“Of course,” Jack said. “That’s the game they play. I was calling to check and see if Sunday is still good.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Lexie said.

“Great. I’ll pick you up at seven thirty. Fish don’t sleep in.”

Lexie laughed. “I’ll be ready.”

Lucy took off her apron and set it on the counter, then smoothed down her lavender- and blue-flowered housedress. “You’re going to burn in hell, Lexie.”

“At least I’ll have a nice tan,” Lexie responded.

Aunt Gladys gave a loud hoot. “Good one, Leslie!”

Lucy shook her head. “I hate to peel and leave, but I’ve got to go vacuum the church and dust the pews. I figured since we’re not that busy, I could get it ready for Sunday services.”

“That’s fine,” Lexie said. “I really doubt the café will get slammed.”

She was right. The remainder of the week dragged by in a similar fashion, and by Saturday afternoon, Lexie was ready to throw in the towel. She felt like trotting downtown and standing in front of the old granite courthouse wearing a sandwich sign that
said,
There is nothing wrong with eating at the The Saucy Lucy Café. You will not get ptomaine poisoning, no one will not put a curse on you, and you will not die.

That, however, was absurd.

Instead, for the second Saturday in a row, Lexie and Lucy closed the café early. Once again, the soup kitchen regulars were fed well. Lexie and Lucy discussed their budget and decided that before long, they would have to shut down the café. Something had to give, and fast.

While Lexie and Lucy’s business was suffering, on the contrary, Aunt Gladys’ love life was blossoming. Frenchie, Aunt Gladys’s rich boyfriend from the Sunrise Center, had been coming by in the evenings, courting the ex-Las Vegas dancer in an old-fashioned and quaint sort of way. It amazed Lexie he could put up with the loon, but they seemed to get along famously.

Aunt Gladys was annoying with her chain smoking and incessant gabbing, yet had an outlandish, eccentric wisdom that was appealing in a shunts-under-the-fingernails sort of way. Lexie admitted, grudgingly, she’d taken a shine to her. Whether she liked it or not, she could see they held similar ideas about life. They identified with each other on a certain quirky level.

Frenchie, the leprechaun man, was pleasant enough. He was kind to Aunt Gladys and kept her occupied so Lexie could have a break once in a while.

That was something to be happy about.

Sunday dawned bright and unusually warm for mid October. Outside Lexie’s partially open bedroom window, birds twittered to each other in the cotton-wood and aspen trees and neighborhood dogs barked in the distance. Yawning, she stretched lazily in her double, four-poster bed, enjoying the idyllic morning. For the first time in a while, she’d had a decent night’s sleep, though her ravaged forehead was still tender to the touch.

Wincing at the dull throb still threading through her temples, she sat up and looked outside into the azure blue, cloud-studded Wyoming sky. That was one nice thing about living in this state. Since the wind blew incessantly, there was never a trace of smog obscuring the horizon, a far cry from Los Angeles, or even Tidewater, where she’d spent the last years before moving home. Down there, a person could believe it was normal for the sky to be a muddy brown color all the time.

Standing, Lexie performed isometric exercises to work out the kinks in her lower lumbar. She twisted her torso, rolled her arms and did circles with her neck. Yawning, she padded over to the window, opened it further, inhaling the fresh air. It seemed like a fine summer day, not autumn. Hard to believe this part of the country was still in the clutches of a severe drought, a drought that had lasted for the
last few years. Despite its devastating effects on local economics, the warm weather was good for one thing.

Fishing.

Slipping out of the white nightshirt with a nasty looking Chihuahua on the front that said,
Bite Me,
Lexie took a long, hot shower, letting the silken water sluice over her skin. Boy, she sure needed to get a softer mattress. Unfortunately, as the years marched on, her body was beginning to demand she relinquish the punishing firmness and give her old muscles a break. As she let her mind wander in the mist of steam, a thought occurred to her.

I need to call Bruce.

She had no idea what time it was in Singapore, but what the heck. It was worth a try. Exiting the shower, Lexie wrapped up in a large bath towel and sat on her bed. She picked up the phone and dialed the group of numbers Bruce had given her to reach his hotel. It’d probably cost a fortune to talk with him for a minute.

A series of beeping sounds filled the airwaves and finally a person actually came on the line. “Singapore International Hotel, how may I help you?” a man with a clipped voice answered.

Lexie asked for Bruce’s room and the operator connected her. The phone rang and rang and finally someone picked up, but didn’t say anything.

“Hello, Bruce? It’s Lexie.”

A high-pitched giggle echoed from the phone
receiver. “Brucie?” A pause. “Ah, he no here. He working.”

Lexie rolled her eyes.
Right.
“When will he be back?”

Another giggle. “I not know.”

“Thanks.” Lexie hung up. Bruce either wasn’t there, or wasn’t talking. No use wasting her thin dime talking to his bimbo.

Damn.
She’d e-mailed Bruce several times, but he hadn’t responded. Now he probably wasn’t going to answer his phone calls. She punched her frustration into a pillow.
Knock it off, Lex. Don’t ruin what could be a fantastic day.

She sighed. Eventually, if she kept plugging away, she should be able to catch up to Bruce. Maybe he really was onto something with his new scheme and had been busy working the last few weeks.
Fat chance,
Lexie thought. She knew better.

She donned a pair of old jeans, an old flannel shirt and sneakers. Tying her hair back in a ponytail, she went downstairs to make coffee. The caffeine was bound to put her in a better mood.

Aunt Gladys was already up and dressed in tight Pepto Bismol colored satin slacks, pink sneakers, and a blouse with bright orange, green, and yellow geometric shapes. Several strands of large beads hung around her neck along with a pink chiffon scarf she’d knotted around the wrinkled column of skin. Long dangly earrings with a pink ball attached to the ends hung from her ears. Her heavy makeup, which
looked as though she’d applied it with a trowel, was firmly in place.

Though she was all powdered, rouged, and mas-caraed, her white hair was still in pink sponge rollers. In one hand she clutched a large glass Lexie was certain must hold her special drink, and in the other she held a cigarette. She alternately took a drink or puffed as she read the morning paper.

When she saw Lexie enter the room, she snapped, “Are you the maid in this joint?” She pointed upstairs with a crooked finger. “I need my sheets changed. And I need some more towels. The room service around here is lousy.”

Lexie sighed. “Aunt Gladys, I’m Lexie, your niece. I changed your sheets and put out fresh towels yesterday.”

“They stink like dirty feet. The towels, I mean. Junior was up all night, dancing on the roof. I barely slept a wink.”

“I’ll check on the towels,” Lexie told her, ignoring the part about Junior. How was she supposed to do anything about the imaginary culprit Aunt Gladys had conjured in her mind?

“Hey, you read the newspaper yet?” Aunt Gladys pointed to a column on the front page. “There’s a story in here about some broad who keeps dating all these guys who wind up dead. Could be my life story, except,” she snorted, “I married all the bums I dated.”

Lexie shot over to the table and read the front
page over Aunt Gladys’ shoulder. The headlines made her shrink into her shoes.
Dying For a Date: Local Woman’s Love Life Shrouded in Mystery.
The story, written by Barnard Savage, went on to document everything that had gone on lately in Lexie’s love life, including her divorce from Dan, Hugh Glenwood’s untimely and still unsolved murder, Henry Whitehead’s demise, and Elton’s accident, including the rumor that she’d run over him.

Lexie moaned and put a hand to her aching forehead.

“Hell’s bells, Leslie.” Aunt Gladys patted her arm. “Don’t worry about anything that butt wipe Barnard Savage has to say. He’s a first class idiot. Why, I knew him when he was a snot-nosed kid who used to eat his own boogers.”