Murder With All The Trimmings Part 12

"I'd rather not say," Josie said.

She'd rather not say it was her monthly Girl's Night Out with Amelia. Once a month, Josie and her daughter went to the Barnes & n.o.ble in Ladue. Amelia got ten dollars to spend on a book. Josie read a magazine and drank coffee in the cafe. Amelia might still be too angry to go out tonight, but Josie was hoping for the best.

"Gotta run," Mike said. "Catch you later. Enjoy your date."

He didn't sound upset that Josie might be going out with someone else. He also didn't say he loved her. Is our romance over, she wondered, or doesn't he care anymore? Josie's brain raced in circles, like a hamster on a wheel, until she was exhausted. She didn't know. She couldn't know. She didn't care. She didn't want to care. She set up the new lawn ornament, then picked up her daughter at the Barrington School.

Josie and Amelia rode home in a th.o.r.n.y silence until her daughter saw the toy soldier on the lawn.

"You found him," Amelia said.

"His brother, I think," Josie said.

"You can't tell the difference, except his colors are brighter," Amelia said.

"Glad you like him."

Josie had made a pot of beef stew, which she thought was perfect for the cold weather. Amelia carefully picked out the carrots.

"Are we going to the bookstore tonight?" she said.

"Sure," Josie said.

"Good. I need book five of The Spiderwick Chronicles."

She needs a book, Josie thought. How many moms get to hear their daughters say that?

After dinner, Amelia and Josie washed the dishes together, and then Josie put on her best blue sweater, jeans, and black boots. She studied her reflection in the mirror.

Not bad, she decided, for a mom with a nine-year-old.

Amelia looked older than nine. Her hair was getting longer and she had budding curves. She could almost pa.s.s for a teenager. She certainly acted like one.

The vast bookstore was crowded on a cold night. Josie headed for the cafe, but then stopped abruptly behind the greeting cards. Amelia ran into her back.

"Is that Mike?" Amelia asked in a voice that Josie was sure could be heard around the store.

"Shh," Josie said, dropping her voice to a whisper.

"Who's that woman at the table with Mike?" Amelia asked.

"Quiet," Josie pleaded.

Mike was sitting with a blonde. A beautiful thin blonde with perfect teeth, salon-styled hair, and a soft cashmere outfit. She was drinking bottled water. Mike was eating a cookie the size of a hubcap.

Josie tried to hide behind a bookshelf, but Amelia ran right up to the table and said, "Hi, Mike."

Mike stood up, as if Amelia were a grown woman. "Amelia, how are you?"

"Fine. Is this your new girlfriend?" Amelia asked.

Josie prayed that the greeting card display would fall on her, but it stayed in place.

"Mr. Wheeler would be very unhappy if that were true," Mike said. "Mrs. Wheeler and I were discussing business."

Right, Josie thought. Mrs. Wheeler looks like business to me. I'd put her on the cover of Fortune magazine.

"Are you here with your mother?" Mike asked.

"Yes," Amelia said. Please lie, Josie prayed for the first time in her life. Please don't tell the truth.

"She's hiding over there behind the greeting cards," Amelia said. "It's our date night."

Josie's shame was complete.

Chapter 14.

"Josie," he moaned. "Josie, why don't you love me?"

Josie could hear the man's voice in her bedroom with the door closed. Nate. It had to be Nate. She tiptoed into the living room and peeked out the miniblinds.

Nate was on her front porch, weepy drunk. The skin on his face was so baggy, it looked like a red rubber mask. His clothes were rumpled and stained. He looked like he'd slept under a bridge.

Josie left the security chain on the door and opened it wide enough to say, "Nate! Please be quiet."

"Quiet?" Nate said. "You didn't used to care if I was quiet. Remember that time in my apartment when we were going at it and I yelled so loud the lady downstairs nearly called the police? She thought you were murdering me."

Josie's face burned at the memory.

"Nate, leave this instant or I will call the police," Josie said.

She looked up and saw Mrs. Mueller pretending to shovel Josie's sidewalk. The woman's right ear practically stuck out of her head like a satellite dish, she was eavesdropping so hard. The nosy old cat, Josie thought. She's listening to our conversation.

Nate raised his voice another notch. "There was a time when you used to yell, too, Josie. Remember that night with the hundred candles? I've never forgotten it. Was that when we made Amelia?"

Mrs. Mueller dropped her snow shovel. It hit the cold concrete with a clang. Nate didn't notice.

But Josie blushed as Nate broadcast the intimate details of their romance to the neighborhood's biggest gossip.

"Nate, please," Josie begged. "Quiet, before the whole neighborhood hears you."

Where's Jane with her broom when I need her? Josie thought. The toy soldier was firmly planted in the lawn, too far out of reach to clobber Nate.

"Josie," Nate said, his voice soggy with alcohol, "I got a present for my li'l girl. A chocolate snowman from Elsie's Elf House." He held up a holiday bag. "Extra chock-lit sauce, just the way she likes it. Wanna give her some. Wanna give you some, too, but not chocolate." He wiggled his hips. "You used to think it was sweet, Josie. What happened?"

"Nate, we can't talk about this on my front porch."

"Then lemme in," Nate said, swaying slightly and slurring his words. "Lemme in so I can see my li'l girl."

"Go away," Josie said. "You don't want your daughter to see you like that."

"Like what?" Nate said, raising his voice again. "You mean happy? Don't you ever get happy anymore, Josie? You don't laugh, Josie. I love my li'l girl. I like to see her smile. I got a present for her. Lemme give Amelia her present." He belched.

"Sober up, Nate," Josie said. "Then you can see your daughter, and she'll be proud of you."

"What's wrong with me?" Nate asked, his voice suddenly angry. "What's wrong with poor old Nate?" He was crying again. Fat tears ran through the stubble on his unshaven cheeks.

"You're a drug dealer," Josie said.

"But I'm legal. I don't sell c.o.ke any more. Mari-Mari-Pot is legal in Canada for medicinal purposes. I'm not a dealer. I'm as good as Shoppers Drug Mart."

"I just bet you are," Josie said.

Nate rattled the storm door handle and howled. "Let me in. I have the right to see my daughter. I want to take her to Toronto, so she can see her grandfather. That's where she belongs. She's mine."

"My daughter is not going anywhere with a drunk," Josie said.

"I'm not drunk," Nate said. "I only had two beers."

The famous two beers, Josie thought. That's all any drunk ever has. The other four or six or ten beers must have been invisible. She slammed the door in his face and locked it. Nate rattled the handle for a few minutes, then sat down on the steps and cried.

Josie couldn't bear to watch this weeping wreck. She ran to her bedroom, shut her door, and called her mother. "Mom, I need help. Nate's drunk and camped out on the front porch. I have to pick up Amelia, but I don't want him following me to the Barrington School."

"That's the last thing Amelia needs-her father making a scene in front of those sn.o.bs." Jane disapproved of the Barrington School.

"I'll go pick her up," Jane said. "Nate won't recognize me after ten years."

"You haven't changed that much, Mom. Besides, Nate will see you coming outside. You'll have to step around him. He knows you live right upstairs. Amelia probably told him. She told him everything else."

"Then I'll go down the back steps to the garage and drive out the alley way," Jane said. "He'll never see me."

"How are you going to get Amelia inside without Nate seeing her?" Josie said.

"We'll take the back stairs to my flat and bake Christmas cookies. I've promised her a lesson."

"Thanks, Mom," Josie said. "I'm glad she inherited your cooking gene."

"You just keep Nate occupied, Josie, but don't stir him up."

Easier said than done, Josie thought. When she went back to the living room, Nate was pounding on the storm door. Josie was afraid he'd crack the gla.s.s.

"Where's my li'l girl?" he yelled. "I want my girl."

Josie could hear her mother clop-clopping down the stairs in her sensible shoes. "Nate," Josie said through the door, "your daughter is at school, where's she's supposed to be. Go home." Josie heard the garage door creak open.

"Will you give her the chocolate snowman?" Nate said.

"No," Josie said. "You can give it to her when you're sober."

She heard a loud thump. Nate must have sat down on the porch. "Why won't you give her my present, huh? Why do you hate me?" His voice was a crying whine.

"Nate, I don't hate you," Josie said. But I'm starting to, she thought.

"Why not?" he asked. "Why can't she have it?"

"Nate," Josie said. "Go sober up. Don't embarra.s.s yourself."

"How am I embarra.s.sing myself?" Nate said. "There's only one old biddy out here pretending to shovel the sidewalk. Any idiot can see she's faking it."

Josie put her head against the cold gla.s.s and wished she could sink through the floor into another place, far, far away. Mrs. Mueller had to have heard Nate, and Jane would get an earful.

"You want me dead, don't you?" Nate said. "Tha's what will make you happy. Nate dead. Dead Nate."

Josie heard her mother's car start up. Tires crunched on the salty slush in the back alley and the garage door clunked shut. She breathed a sigh of relief. Jane had gotten away unnoticed.

"Good-bye, Nate," Josie said.

"Okay, if I can't give the snowman to my li'l girl, I'll eat it myself," Nate said, his voice thick with self-pity. "You'll both be sorry." Nate raised his voice still louder. "Did you hear me? I'll make you sorry, Josie. I'll make you wish you were dead. I'm gonna take my little girl where you'll never find her. You owe me nine years."

As Josie closed the door, Nate was flopped on the porch steps, eating the gooey concoction. She watched him pull off thick pieces of cake with his fingers and dip them in the extra chocolate sauce.

"You're missing something good, Josie," Nate said, licking his fingers. He'd nearly polished off the whole cake. All that sweet goo was going to make him sick. Josie hoped he wouldn't throw up on her porch.

She was relieved to see that Mrs. Mueller had gone back inside. She wished Nate would go, too. Josie locked the door.

It was nearly an hour later when she heard Jane's garage door go up, then the sound of her daughter talking. "Can we make Christmas tree cookies, Grandma?" Amelia asked. Their voices trailed off as they climbed the stairs to Jane's second-floor flat.

Josie sat down on the couch for a minute, and she must have fallen asleep. She was startled awake when the phone rang. What time was it? She glanced in the kitchen. Seven o'clock, according to the wall clock.

"We've had dinner and baked Christmas cookies," Jane said. "Amelia will be bringing you sugar cookies and snickerdoodles. Is that man gone yet?"

"Let me check," Josie said. She put down the phone and looked out the door. Nate was still huddled on the cold, dark porch. He looked like a bundle of rags. I'd better wake him up before he freezes to death, she thought.

Josie opened the front door. "Nate," she called. "Wake up."

Nate didn't respond.

"Nate, please wake up."

He ignored her. Josie tiptoed out on the porch. The wood felt cold and gritty with rock salt on her bare feet.

Nate didn't move. He was sprawled on the steps, leaning against the banister. Nate was breathing in a strange way, as if a heavy beast was in his chest.