Wednesday
Cranky Agnes column #75
“It’s His Fault You’re Fat”
Heartache often drives us to consume things we wouldn’t otherwise, such as an entire pint of Caramel Pecan Perfection high-fat ice cream, covered in ganache, the crack cocaine of frozen dairy. Twelve hundred calories per pint, six hundred and eighty of which are fat calories, but it only dulls the pain for the moment, there’s that carb fog while you’re standing at the sink shoving it in your face, and then it’s over and you feel... used. Like a cheap pickup the Dove people seduced and abandoned in your kitchen, leaving you with sticky hands and an empty cup and a still-broken heart, except now you’re mad at Dove, too.
Shane could hearCarpenter whistling inside the house, a good sign. He could also feel Agnes shivering beside him on the porch swing, not a good sign. He still wasn’t sure what had happened with Taylor to set her off with the meat fork, but he knew that being shot at by a strange man shortly after having angry sex, shortly after having tried to kill your fiancé, shortly after having a dognapper point a gun at you was a bad night for anybody, even a woman as tough as Agnes. Although she’d certainly been up for the sex. Energetic woman, Agnes. He hadn’t been surprised when she’d come unglued there at the end of it all, but he had been surprised that she’d managed to get it all over with in about ten minutes. Energetic and efficient. One in a million.
She shivered and he put his arm around her.
“So you and Carpenter,” Agnes said. “You’re like, partners?” She shifted on the swing so she could look up at him through those ridiculous red-rimmed glasses. Her lips were very close, and her curls brushed his neck, and she was warm against his arm, and she was bra-less in that strappy dress, squished against him. ...
“Okay, then,” Agnes said when he didn’t answer her. “Who do you work for?”
“We work for a very special organization,” Shane said, trying to sound noble.
“That sounds so ... UNICEF-ish.” She looked back toward the kitchen. “It’s not UNICEF, is it?”
Carpenter came through the screen door, a body bag over his shoulder, and Agnes’s big eyes got wider. “I’ve got the package ready for removal and the scene cleaned. I’m sure you checked the wallet and saw the half a dime. Not a professional. Four shots—overkill, don’t you think?”
“I was annoyed,” Shane said. The shithead fucked up my afterglow.
Agnes looked from one to the other. “I was just going in,” she said. “Very nice to meet you, Mr. Carpenter, thank you for cleaning up my kitchen.” Then she got up and left, taking her warmth with her.
Shane stood, too.
Carpenter said, “What does she know?”
“Now, nothing,” Shane said. “Shortly, probably too much. She’s in the middle.”
“Wilson won’t like it.” Shane stood, silent
“You would make a good department head,” Carpenter said. “I would enjoy working for you.”
“With,” Shane said. “This job could end it.”
“This job could make it. Wilson told me Casey Dean’s hit will be here.”
Carpenter considered that. “Casey Dean is a professional. He’d never have anything to do with this—” He shook the body bag ever so slightly.
“True,” Shane agreed. “So something else is going on.” Carpenter looked back inside to Agnes, who now appeared to be talking to the wall over the table. “What about her?”
“Someone appears to want her dead.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You sure she was the target for this guy?”
“Not positive.”
“Is it our business if she is?”
“It’s my business.”
Carpenter nodded back toward Agnes. “There’s a kid in the basement. Connected to this?” He jerked the body bag on his shoulder as if it were full of feathers and not dead meat.
“I don’t think so. This guy was coming to shoot. The kid was like another one who came last night, after something.”
Carpenter looked thoughtful, as if he were calculating something, and Shane was taken aback when he said, “I understand she cooks.”
“Yes.”
“I am often hungry in the morning.”
Shane paid attention. “She makes an excellent breakfast”
“Perhaps I should come for breakfast.”
“That would be ... new.”
Carpenter nodded. “A good partnership is flexible.”
“Wilson might not like it.”
“Wilson is retiring,” Carpenter said. “You are in a complex situation. And I am often hungry in the morning.” He touched a finger to his forehead in a salute and readjusted the body bag over his shoulder. “Be centered.”
Then he was gone and Shane went inside to see what Agnes was saying to the wall.
Agnes had gone insideand watched as Carpenter talked to Shane with the body bag over his shoulder as casually as Palmer had talked to Maria with her dress bag over his shoulder. She looked at the basement door and then back to Shane and Carpenter and then back to the basement door, and then she went to the wall, leaned over the table blocking the door, and pushed open the door a crack.
“Hello?” she whispered.
“H’lo?” came a cautious whisper back.
“So who are you?” Agnes whispered.
“I heard shootin’,” the boy said, his voice a soft drawl. “Yes.”
“Damn.” There was a moment of silence, then, “Listen, I got my rights.”
“No, you don’t,” Agnes said, annoyed at his lack of groveling. “You attacked me in my house. I hit the last kid who attacked me with a frying pan.” And then there was the meat fork, she thought, shuddering at the memory of the blood running down Taylor’s neck. “Now who the hell are you?”
The boy sighed. “I’m Three Wheels Thibault.”
“The kid who died here last night was named Two Wheels Thibault. Relative of yours?”
“Cousin,” Three Wheels said.
“Well, I’m sorry for your loss,” Agnes said, and added hastily, “I didn’t kill him.”
“He were a dickhead. Always callin’ names. Actin’ like a big shot. Pokin’ fun. Made me mad, you know.”
“No,” Agnes said. “I wouldn’t know about that.” She looked over her shoulder at Carpenter and Shane, who were still talking. That wouldn’t last long. “Can you climb up out of there?”
“No, ma’am, I tried.” The boy summoned up some outrage. “I think I hurt my ankle. I’m gonna sue that guy who dropped me in here.”
Agnes looked back again at Shane and Carpenter. Shane looked roughly the size of a grain elevator. Carpenter was bigger. “Three Wheels, these are not men who get sued.”
“Think they’re better’n everybody else,” Three Wheels groused.
“No, it’s because anybody who might sue them stops breathing,” Agnes said, acknowledging what she’d been trying to ignore about Shane’s career choice.
“Oh,” Three Wheels said, all grouse gone. “That was the shootin’ thing?”
“Yes.”
“They with the mob? My grandpa used to work for the mob.”
“Who’s your grandpa?”
“Four Wheels Thibault”
“Four Wheels?” Agnes said, and had an out-of-body Two Wheels— Three Wheels—Four Wheels—I-Just-Had-Sex-with-a-Professional-Killer-and-Almost-Died-Three-Times epiphany. “Jesus Christ. Never mind. Who sent you to kill me?”
“Grandpa. ‘Cept I weren’t supposed to kill you, just supposed to get the dog with the collar on’t He said it’d be easy. You was supposed to be alone.”
“Yeah, well, bad luck for you,” Agnes said, and then Shane turned back to the house, and she said, “You be quiet,” and shut the door and stepped away from the wall, realizing as she did that, while she didn’t know the kid she had imprisoned in her basement well enough to trust him, she didn’t know the man she’d just had sex with at all.
Shane camethrough the door braced for whatever Agnes was up to now. She said, “Is Carpenter gone?” a little more loudly than necessary, leaning much too casually across the basement door, and he thought, Wonderful. She’s bonded with the kid in the basement.
“Yep.” Shane closed the back door. “And so is Macy.”
“That was an interesting conversation,” Agnes said. “‘The package.’ ‘Not a professional’? ‘Half a dime’?”
“The body. Not a professional killer. Five hundred dollars.” Shane jerked his head toward the porch, changing the subject. “So you want to move out there for the night? Carpenter said he’ll have the electricity back by morning. Until then, it’ll be cooler out there.”
“Sure.” Agnes took a deep breath. “Okay, so the kid in the basement. He’s just a kid. I don’t think he was trying to hurt anybody.”
“He had a gun, Agnes.”
“He says he was only after Rhett. I’m sure he didn’t mean any real harm. I think we should just let him stew down there for the night, talk to him in the morning, you scare him, make him see the light. That’ll be plenty enough.” She turned and went past him toward the housekeeper’s room, and then stopped and turned back when he didn’t follow. “So you coming to help carry stuff?” She looked nervously toward the basement door.
Shane sighed. “Agnes, I’m not going to hurt him.”
“He just came to get Rhett,” Agnes said, pleading with him from behind her glasses.
She wasn’t wearing a bra under her dress; in fact, he was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing anything under her dress. He was tired, but not that tired. “What else did he tell you?” he said, trying not to give away that she could probably get pretty much whatever she wanted from him.
Agnes sighed. “His name is Three Wheels Thibault, and his grandpa, Four Wheels, who used to work for the mob, sent him to get the dog. The kid last night, Two Wheels, was his cousin who always picked on him. He says he hurt his ankle when you dropped him in the basement and he was going to sue you but I talked him out of it. I think he’s bluffing.”
“What’s his favorite color?” Shane said.
“Blue,” Agnes said.
He shook his head. “You sure you’re okay?”
“No. People keep trying to kill me.”
“And I keep stopping them,” Shane said.
“And don’t think I’m not grateful,” Agnes said. “You’re getting a really nice breakfast tomorrow.”
“Make enough for Carpenter,” he said. Agnes blinked. “Really?”
“That a problem?”
“No,” Agnes said, her brow furrowing as she thought about it. “No. He seems like a good guy. I mean, his skill set is upsetting, but so is yours, and I’m for you. People are trying to kill me and you’re saving me, so I’m definitely for you.”
Shane nodded. “All right, then.”
“So come help me get the pillows,” Agnes said. “Do not shoot Three Wheels. Save yourself for Grandpa Four Wheels, who sent both boys.”
“I’m not going to shoot Three Wheels,” Shane said, exasperated. “What do you think I am?”
“A hitman,” Agnes said. Shane nodded. “Good call.”
Agnes wrapped her arms around herself. “You could have lied to me, you know.”
“I’m guessing that’s when you pick up the meat fork,” Shane said, and pointed her toward the bedroom.
“I’m giving up meat forks,” Agnes said, and she sounded as though she meant every word of it.
“We’ll see,” Shane said.
Half an hour later,Agnes lay curled into an insomniac fetal position on her back porch under a sheet, trying to take stock. The man she’d planned on marrying was not only married to another woman, he was trying to cheat her out of her house with the other woman, and she’d almost killed him in retaliation. The Southern-Italian wedding of the season that she’d planned with meticulous care was now going to be a flamingo-themed pink-fest. Two different men had shown up with guns and pointed them at her tonight, for reasons that appeared to involve her dog, and one of them had definitely intended to kill her. A man the size of a truck had just removed a body from her kitchen. An underage kid named after a tricycle was trapped in her basement, because the hitman she’d just had angry sex with wanted to talk to him in the morning. And her column still wasn’t done.
She was definitely turning over a new leaf. Her next fiancé was going to be a nice, steady, nice, regular nice guy, a non-lethal, non-lying nice guy. A good guy.
Agnes shifted on Shane’s air mattress. She was definitely not sleeping with the hitman again. That was just insane. The whole concept of “messy breakup” alone could?—
“You sure you’re okay?” Shane said, half asleep beside her now.
“Yes,” Agnes said.
Which wasn’t a lie. She was exhausted, but she wasn’t angry or frightened or insane anymore. If she’d been this calm when they’d had sex, she might have noticed some of the details. It was a shame she’d missed that.
She shifted again.
“Something wrong?”
“No.” But it would be really nice if you wrapped your arms around me. And then did some stuff. To keep my mind off some other stuff. And make me so tired, I pass out. And then tomorrow, I’ll be sane and never sleep with you again.
“You scared?”
“No,” Agnes said. “You’re here.”
“What then? I’m trying to get to sleep, and you’re tense as a board.”
“Yeah,” Agnes said. “About that.”
“Whatever it is you need, I’ll take care of it in the morning.” He stretched over and kissed her forehead, and she lifted her chin to catch his mouth, putting her hand on his cheek and kissing him back, and after a minute, he pulled back. “Agnes?”
“Well,” she said in a reasonable voice. “It’s morning somewhere.”
He rolled over on his back and stared at the porch ceiling. “You’re an odd woman, Agnes.” He sighed. “You have any special requests? Anything you like?”
“Men,” Agnes said. “Men who save my life and then make me come on my back porch.”
“I can do that,” Shane said, and put his arms around her, and Agnes sighed and began to concentrate on the details.
They were very comforting.
Shane woke feelingnaked and exposed. And content. He cracked an eye at the mop of dark curly hair lying across his chest, which he knew was a mistake, because he should be checking the perimeter first to see what had wakened him. He was making a lot of mistakes lately.
He looked over at Rhett and noted that the bloodhound had his head up, which he took to be a sign of high alert for the dog. Probably the apocalypse coming, and the Four Horsemen were pounding toward the bridge over the inlet right now. With luck, it would collapse under them. Shane slid out from underneath Agnes and realized he was very exposed. A sniper could take him out easily.
Shane grabbed the rumpled sheet and went to drape it over Agnes, but paused, taking in her soft, round naked body for a few seconds, then carefully placed it over her. He reached down and grabbed his pants and put them on, fastening the holster for his Glock in place. He slid his feet into his boots.
A figure wearing a straw hat walked down the dock, a tackle box in hand, casting a long shadow over the water to one side. Shane opened the screen door, and Rhett shambled down the path to greet the invader.
They met near the gazebo. “Detective Xavier.”
“Mister Shane Smith.”
“How do you know that?”
“Saw the scrapbook your uncle keeps in the diner under the counter. Saw that picture of you in the hospital bed, getting the Silver Star when you were in the Rangers. Your uncle talked some about you.”
“My uncle has a big mouth.” Joey has a scrapbook on me? “Not big enough. So you were a war hero and got wounded?”
“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Shane said. “Don’t want to have that happen again,” Xavier said. Rhett peed.
Shane said, “So where is Detective Hammond this fine morning?”
“He volunteered to get some background on the wedding,” Xavier said. “See if that might explain the unfortunate break-in. I believe he knows the bride.”
Rhett continued to pee.
Shane noted the tackle box. “Going fishing? Water’s back where you came from.” He nodded to the small boat tied off at the floating dock.
“What I’m fishing for is in the house.” Xavier tried to get around Shane.
Shane moved to block his way. “And that is?” Xavier halted. “I don’t like that basement.”
“It is dank and dark.”
“I don’t like that crime scene.” He made to get by once more. Shane folded his arms. “You said it was an accident”
“It was.”
“Then?”
“I want to poke around.” Xavier tried to step around once more, and Shane edged into his way.
“Poking around can be dangerous.”
Xavier looked up at him, exasperated. “What are you trying to say, son?”
“Already said it.”
Rhett finished peeing and came over and sniffed Xavier’s shoes, seemed satisfied, and ambled toward the house. Great guard dog, Shane thought.
Xavier looked at Shane’s outfit of pants, pistol, and no shirt, and then glanced up at the porch. “You sleep outside?”
Shane turned and looked through the screen door. There was no sign of Agnes or the sheets that had been tumbled there. A woman who could wake up fast and then remove evidence silently. His kind of girl.
“Yep. I like fresh air.”
Xavier nodded, his exasperation evaporating into amusement. “Right. Miss Agnes up yet?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Right.” Xavier gave a lazy grin and walked around Shane. “Quite a woman, that Miss Agnes.”
“Yep,” Shane said, following him up the walk. “Bit sharp-tempered, though.”
“I’d call her fiery.”
Xavier turned his head toward Shane and nodded amiably. “Fiery. That’s good.”
They walked up the path, Rhett ambling with them. Xavier trooped up the steps to the porch and spared a glance at the air mattress and Shane’s T-shirt, crumpled in a ball. “Restless night, son?”
“Slept like a baby.”
“I bet you did,” Xavier said, and went into the kitchen.
Agnes had awoken slowlyto voices out by the gazebo and then quickly to the realization that she was naked on her back porch with a teenage boy imprisoned in her basement and a cop walking up to her back door.
Shit.She grabbed for her sundress and slipped it on, trying to stay below the screens while gathering up as much of the bedding as she could carry, then did a low dash into the house to get Three Wheels out before Xavier saw him. She shoved the table away from the basement door, pushed the door open, whispered, “Wake up down there,” and dropped one of the kitchen chairs into the opening. “Climb on that and boost yourself up here.”
She stood back as Three Wheels clutched and clambered out of the hole, skinny and dirty, seemingly made entirely of elbows and knees with a shock of reddish-blond hair sticking out from under his old Confederate army cap. When he was on his feet, she grabbed his shirt.
“Listen to me,” she said. “In about half a minute, Detective Xavier is gonna come through that door and ask who the hell you are. You agree with everything I say, and you won’t go to jail for threatening me with a deadly weapon, you understand?”
Three Wheels looked tired, scared, and mad, but when he heard Xavier’s voice, his eyes widened and he nodded.
Agnes shoved him into the nearest seat and said, “I’m making you breakfast. You’ll eat it.”
“Yes’m,” Three Wheels said.
Agnes started to put coffee on and then shifted course to the fridge and poured Three Wheels a glass of milk instead. She put that in front of him, stuck bread in the toaster to get him started—if his mouth was full of food and drink, all the better—poured coffee beans into the grinder, turned the gas on under the griddle, fired up her CD player, and then got out her bowl to make pancake batter. The toaster heated up, so Carpenter must have fixed the electricity. That was?—
Three Wheels was staring at her.
“What?” she snapped.
“Nothin’,” he said, looking away, blushing.
She looked down and remembered: no bra. “Oh, for the love of...” She reached over and grabbed her Cranky Agnes apron and put it on to cut down on the shifting problem under her dress. Then the toast popped and she loaded four slices up with butter and jam and put it all in front of Three Wheels. “Chew, don’t talk.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Three Wheels said, and began to eat as if he’d never seen food before.
She almost felt sorry for him, but he’d broken into her kitchen, pointed a gun at her, and tried to take her dog, so the hell with him.
She started the coffee brewing and melted butter in the microwave, then dumped flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl just as Shane and Xavier came through the back door from the porch, followed by Rhett, who immediately flopped down in a patch of sunshine and fell asleep. Well, it was a long walk up from the yard. She smiled at Xavier—see how friendly and unworried I am?—and said, “Detective Xavier, what brings you out here so early in the morning?”
“The smell of that wonderful coffee brewing in your kitchen, Miss Agnes.”
“It reached all the way into Keyes, did it?” Agnes smiled wider at him, trying to make the words warm instead of sarcastic. “Well, then I’ll pour you a cup as soon as it’s ready.”
“I’d appreciate that.” Xavier nodded to Three Wheels, who crammed the rest of his piece of toast in his mouth. “And who might this be?”
“This is—” Agnes began, and then Doyle came in from the front of the house, calling “Top of the morning!” Agnes crossed her fingers mentally and then said to Xavier, loud enough that Doyle could hear, “This is Doyle’s assistant. He’s helping with the painting, trying to get the house finished for the wedding.” She turned to Doyle. “Pancakes coming right up, Doyle.”
Doyle’s bushy white eyebrows had shot up, but she met his eyes and he nodded. “All right, darlin’. I could use ... some pancakes.”
Thank you, Doyle, she thought, and turned back to Xavier. “Did you come for breakfast, Detective?” Please God, say no. Three Wheels will never be able to fake it through a whole breakfast.
“No, Miss Agnes, I came for your basement,” Xavier said. “I’ll just be going down there now.”
Agnes looked at Shane.
“I’ll just be going with him,” Shane said.
Agnes nodded. It was a real shame she wasn’t going to be sleeping with him anymore. A man that fast on the uptake was a treasure. Of course, given his line of work, a man slow on the uptake was dead.
Xavier looked into the hole. “Why is there a chair in here?”
“I put it in there so people could get in and out,” Agnes said. When Shane and Xavier both looked at her as if she were insane, she added, “It seemed like a good idea.”
“I’ll go get the ladder,” Doyle said, and left.
Xavier set the tackle box on the kitchen counter, and Agnes went back to her pancakes. Anything was better than just standing there, looking Xavier in the eye.
She went to the fridge and got buttermilk, sour cream, eggs, and ham while Xavier gestured to the box and said, “This is my crime scene investigation kit.” He held up a can. “Luminol.” He looked at Agnes. “It detects blood even if someone’s cleaned it up so you can’t see it with the naked eye.”
Agnes cracked an egg too hard and got shell in the bowl. “Blood?”
She picked the shell out and thought of how she’d spilled Taylor’s blood right about where Xavier was standing. She glopped in the sour cream and began to whisk. Whisking was very good for nervous energy, especially with “Tortured, Tangled Hearts” twanging as back-up music.
Doyle came back with the ladder.
“You know,” Xavier said as the ladder clattered into place, “it is kind of strange that those stairs are missing. Seems like someone was trying to hide that room for some reason.”
Agnes kept whisking. “Brenda said she boarded it up because it made her think of her poor departed Frankie and she wanted to forget”
“Poor old widow woman,” Doyle said, his voice full of Irish.
Xavier shrugged. “It was mighty convenient that old Two Wheels?—”
Three Wheels choked on his milk.
“—hit right here where he would fall through and?—”
“You said Agnes was clear,” Shane interrupted.