Double Shot Page 3

  I stopped and turned at my door.

  “What?” he snapped. “I’m just telling you the truth, Jessie.”

  “Upset Snowflake and I will throw you out a window. Do you understand?”

  He nodded, mute for a nice change of pace, and I opened the door.

  The poor cat was a bit disconcerted, what with my new look and the presence of our ex, of all people. She offered him the look of sheer disdain she had been using with Puddles and found her perch on the windowsill.

  “Sit.” I pointed Ian to an easy chair, took the chair opposite, and waited while he glanced around. My condo is huge, but with its open floor plan, Ian could see virtually the entire place from his vantage point.

  “This is really nice,” he concluded.

  “What do you want?”

  He mumbled something about patience and finally told me the latest. After losing his accounting firm, he had decided to open a small bookkeeping operation. “Playing with other people’s money is all I know how to do,” he explained. “But I’ll be honest with you, Jessie. Business isn’t good.”

  “What a shocker,” I said, the sarcasm veritably oozing from my voice. Call me unkind, but I have little sympathy for the man who sold confidential information about my finances at a poker game. And I’m not the only person Ian Crawcheck defrauded. Nobody in town trusted him anymore.

  “Things will pick up,” he insisted.

  “And you just happened to set up this promising new business in my neighborhood?”

  He pointed out a window. “I’m at 209 Vine Street—the second floor.”

  I closed my eyes and prayed for strength. My ex-husband’s office was within spitting distance of my condo.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked for the umpteenth time.

  “I need a place to stay.”

  I guffawed.

  “Just until I get back on my feet,” he clarified, and I guffawed again.

  Then I asked if he were serious, and then I said no.

  “I have nowhere else to go,” he pleaded. “I can’t afford renting this new office and an apartment right now.”

  I closed my eyes again, only to notice the enormous headache I was growing.

  “Come on, Jessie. You’re the only friend I have left in this town.”

  Demonstrating how highly-evolved I am, I let that delusionary notion slide without comment. “Does this new office have a couch?” I asked.

  “Well, yeah.”

  “So then, you do have a place to stay.”

  “Give me a break. There’s no kitchen, no shower, and the couch is lumpy.”

  I groaned audibly, and Snowflake hopped into my lap to commiserate. I have no idea what she was thinking, but it had to be something more pleasant than the image haunting my own head. I pictured my ex-husband wandering around my neighborhood, looking and smelling like a vagrant.

  Unfortunately, I came up with a solution. Why, oh why, am I such a creative thinker?

  “Okay, so here’s the plan.” I stared at Snowflake but spoke to Ian. “You can come over here once a day to shower and shave. You will arrive at eleven a.m. sharp and be out of here within the hour. You will leave not one trace of your existence. And,” I added, ignoring Ian’s protests, “you will leave the bathroom cleaner than you found it.”

  That last stipulation would be hard to accomplish since I keep a spotless home, but that was Ian’s problem.

  “What about my stuff?” he asked. “My clothes, for instance?”

  “Not my concern. Oh, and you can scoop out Snowflake’s litter box each day.”

  “Eleven o’clock? Come on, Jessie. I have a business to run.”

  “And I don’t? As you know, I do my best writing first thing in the morning. You,” I pointed, “will not be here.”

  He huffed and puffed as I continued laying out the rules as they occurred to me. “Since you’re now in the neighborhood—my neighborhood—you might think of popping in at The Stone Fountain. Do not.”

  “But that bar is where everyone hangs out around here.”

  “Exactly. My friends and I enjoy it, and I intend to keep it that way.”

  Ian almost—almost—mumbled out a “Bitch.”

  “Wilson and his friends like The Stone Fountain also,” I informed him. “One assumes you wish to avoid employees of the Clarence Police Department right now?”

  Ian curled his lip. “How’s that little May-December romance going for you?” he asked, and I reminded him I could revoke his showering privileges before they even began.

  “I’ll need a key,” he said.

  After another hearty guffaw I told him to keep dreaming. “Ring the bell downstairs, and I’ll buzz you in. And if I’m not here, you’ll just have to suffer.”

  That time I distinctly did hear the word bitch. Snowflake scolded him, and he finally remembered his manners. In fact, he thanked me with what might have passed for sincere gratitude.

  He stood up. “Can we start now?”

  “No. Tomorrow.”

  He began to protest, but another firm meow from Snowflake shut him up, and he headed toward the door.

  “Wait,” I called out, and he turned around.

  “Snowflake has one more question before you leave.”

  “What, what, what?”

  I took a deep breath. “She’s wondering if you have enough money for food.”

  He blinked twice. “Things aren’t that desperate,” he said quietly and shut the door behind him.

  I sat and stared into space for who knows how long.

  Chapter 4

  Seductive attire Karen Sembler-style usually means replacing her white “Sembler Assembly and Carpentry” tee-shirt for a black V-neck, no logo. But I still had to smile when she arrived at my door that evening. She had balked at my suggestion to dress provocatively for our night out. But bless her heart, not only had she changed her shirt, she had also arranged her usual tangle of auburn hair into an elaborate chignon.

  I didn’t need to look down to know she was in jeans and work boots. I’ve never seen Karen in anything but jeans and work boots. Unless she’s working—in which case she adds a rather daunting tool belt to the ensemble.

  Karen was staring at my hair, searching for words, when Candy Poppe, resplendent in a sapphire blue mini dress, arrived. She brushed past us and made a bee-line for the coffee table, where she unceremoniously dumped an enormous pile of junk. I hadn’t bothered to tell Candy to dress sexy, since the woman knows no other option, but I had requested she bring up all of her cosmetics and jewelry.

  Relieved of her burdens, Candy spun around on her stilettos and almost fell over. “Oh my gosh, Jessie.” She held onto the couch for support. “What happened to your hair?” When she realized how unflattering that sounded, she tried again. “I mean, what did you do to your hair?” That didn’t quite work either. “I mean, gosh, Jessie, did you get your hair done today?” She tilted her head and attempted a smile.

  Karen tapped me on the shoulder. “It looks like you dipped your head in an inkwell, girlfriend.”

  I thanked her for noticing, and while they stared at me aghast, I explained my new do and the plan for the evening. Their eyes got quite wide when I mentioned the Wade On Inn. And they got even wider when I dug into my jeans pocket and pulled out a handful of twenties. I gave each of them a hundred dollars from the money Wilson had allotted.

  “What’s this for?” Karen blinked at the cash in her palm.

  “Gambling,” I said with my brightest smile. “While we search for the killer, we can wager on the pool game. Won’t that be fun?”

  My friends frowned alternately between my hairdo and the money they each held. The headache that had been threatening since Ian’s visit hit me full force, but I kept on smiling.

  “It’ll be fun,” I repeated.

  Ignoring me altogether, they embarked on a detailed debate about what was more disturbing—venturing into the Wade On Inn to catch a killer, or being seen in public with me and my new
look.

  I left the room in search of an Advil.

  They were discussing sixties sitcoms when I returned from the bathroom. I interrupted a dispute about The Addams Family and pointed to Candy’s cosmetic case, or perhaps I should say Candy’s cosmetic duffle bag. “Help me with my makeup, Sweetie?”

  “Gosh, Jessie.” She hazarded another glance at my hairdo. “I don’t know.”

  I begged. Surely she had something in that satchel to rectify my appearance? Barring that, maybe a couple extra layers of mascara would help my disguise. Karen said something about my needing all the help I could get, and Candy finally acquiesced.

  Thus I sat at my dressing table and let my young friend do her magic. I kept my eyes closed for most of the operation and stalwartly ignored Karen, who sat behind us on the bed, humming the theme song from The Addams Family and snapping her fingers at the appropriate intervals.

  ***

  “Okay, Jessie,” Candy said eventually. “You can look now.”

  I opened my eyes and the three of us stared at my reflection. Aghast again.

  We had agreed that my fair coloring and pale eyebrows looked awful under such dark hair, so Candy had opted to darken my eyebrows, lashes, and lids with shades that worked well with her own olive complexion and brunette locks. Funny how a plan that sounded so logical in the abstract, could go so awry in the actual execution.

  Grim reality hit me. “It’s not The Addams Family,” I said. “It’s The Munsters.”

  “That’s it, Jess!” Karen clapped her hands. “You look just like Eddie Munster!”

  “Help me,” I pleaded.

  But both my friends seemed mystified as to how they might accomplish that. Snowflake was also puzzled. She stared at my reflection from her spot beside Karen, looking oh so smug in her pristine white coat.

  “Jewelry!” Candy exclaimed, and we all jumped. “More jewelry will help, Jessie. I just know it will.”

  Bless her heart, she actually smiled at my reflection before scurrying over to the coffee table to retrieve her bigger-than-a-bread-box jewelry box. She dropped it on the bed, and Snowflake supervised while she and Karen rummaged around, pulling out this and that unlikely item for my perusal.

  I watched with growing apprehension. “Wilson thought your jewelry might help my disguise,” I told Candy.

  Karen held up something akin to a rhinestone-studded dog collar. “This should do the trick.”

  I resigned myself to my fate and took off my own jewelry, which suddenly seemed remarkably understated. I took out the diamond stud earrings my parents had given me when I graduated from Duke, and un-clipped the diamond pendant necklace I bought myself when I landed my first book contract. And finally, I took off the antique bracelet that I had purchased only a month earlier, after Windswept Whispers hit the New York Times bestseller list, a first for Adelé Nightingale.

  Meanwhile Candy was decorating me in rhinestones. “I know this isn’t really your style,” she said as she hooked the dog collar on me. “But it can’t hurt, can it?”

  “Help me,” I tried again.

  “Sorry, Jess,” Karen said. “But now you look like Eddie Munster in drag.”

  I was busy sighing dramatically when Candy slipped a pair of glasses, something else she harbored in that jewelry box, onto my face.

  “Sweetie.” I straightened the wire-rimmed spectacles. “I do not wear glasses, and I certainly can’t wear someone else’s if I want to see straight at the pool table.” I thought a minute. “You don’t wear glasses either?”

  “Contacts,” she said. “But look through them, Jessie. They’re just clear glass.” She smiled down at me, and it did seem as if my vision hadn’t changed a bit. “I wore them for a Halloween party last year. I went as a librarian.”

  Keeping an open mind—Lord knows, I was keeping an open mind—I checked my reflection. Pince-nez. I swear to God, Candy Poppe had plopped a pair of pince-nez onto my nose.

  Karen confessed that she had run out of words to do justice to my new look.

  Being a writer, I helped her out. “I look like a near-sighted Eddie Munster in drag,” I concluded. Much to my chagrin, no one argued.

  “At least I won’t have to worry about getting picked up at the Wade On Inn,” I mumbled optimistically. “No man in his right mind would hit on me.”

  Ever-helpful, Karen reminded me that murderers aren’t usually in their right minds as Candy started rummaging around in my underwear drawer.

  Okay, now I was really alarmed. “What are you doing in there?” I forced myself to ask.

  She pulled out the push-up bra she had talked me into the last time I was in Tate’s and held it aloft. “Let’s try this!”

  “Oh boy,” Karen said.

  Perhaps I should mention Candy Poppe is the world’s best bra and underwear saleswoman. She works at Tate’s Department Store, and most every woman in Clarence goes to her for their underclothing needs. Even Karen admits to sporting a heck of a lot of lace beneath her rugged exterior due to our neighbor’s influence.

  “I admit you’re not looking your best with your new look and all,” Candy was saying. “But at least you can play up that fantastic figure of yours.” “Playing up” one’s figure is Candy Poppe’s euphemism for pushing up a few key aspects thereof.

  I winced at the ridiculous lacy thing, pink no less, that Candy was jiggling before my pince-nez.

  “I’d wear the bra if I were you.” Karen pointed at my hairdo. “You need all the help you can get right now.”

  “That’s it!” I stood up, yanked the bra from Candy, and gestured for Karen to take the hot seat.

  “Oh, no,” she said, pointing to the various ointments, tubes and compacts littering the table. “Kiddo here isn’t coming near me with that stuff. What you see, is what you get.”

  She tried hiding behind Snowflake, but Candy was not so easily deterred. She pulled her off the bed and toward my dressing table. “We all have to look like we belong at the Wade On Inn,” she insisted.

  “And if I can go out looking like this, you can at least put on some damn mascara,” I added.

  “Good point,” they said in unison.

  While they argued over the appropriate shade of blush to compliment Karen’s porcelain skin tone, I turned my back and slipped out of my sweater. Giving myself some credit, I had already decided on something low-cut and slinky for my outing to the Wade On Inn. Once upon a time flashing cleavage had been one of my standard pool-table ploys. My cleavage wasn’t what it used to be, but perhaps the headache-inducing bra would help.

  “Wearing things like this might keep me in the running with Wilson,” I said as I got dressed.

  “What’s that, Jessie?” Candy was fiddling with Karen’s eyebrows when I turned around.

  “Tiffany Sass is that.” I re-donned the silly glasses. “You’ve seen her at The Stone Fountain.”

  “The knockout who works with Wilson?” Karen asked behind closed eyes. “The guys start spilling stuff when she’s around. Is that her?”

  I plopped down on the bed. “The girl—and I do mean girl—and my beau are completely smitten with each other.”

  “Smitten?” Karen shook her head, but Candy scolded her to keep still. “Where do you come up with this stuff, girlfriend? Wilson’s smitten with you.”

  Candy agreed. “You two are madly in love, Jessie. Anyone can see that.”

  I reminded my friends what I do for a living. “Adelé Nightingale knows smitten when she sees smitten.”

  “Speaking of the men in your life,” Candy asked coyly. “Did you talk to Ian yet?”

  “Ian Crawcheck is not a man in my life,” I said firmly. “And yes. And don’t remind me.”

  “What’s up with Ian?” Karen asked.

  “Amanda threw him out and now he wants to move in here!” Candy told her. “You’re not gonna let him, Jessie?”

  “Only when hell freezes over. But unfortunately it’s not that simple.”

  I explained Ian’s predi
cament and the shower situation while Karen studied me in the mirror. “Wilson won’t like it,” she said.

  “Trust me, I’m not all crazy about it either. But the only thing worse than seeing my ex on occasion would be smelling him, no?”

  “Gross,” Candy agreed.

  She finished with Karen’s face and glanced over at me, or more specifically, at my chest. “Oh, Jessie!” she exclaimed. “That bra helps so much! I hope I have a figure as nice as yours when I’m old.”

  Karen grimaced at her own reflection and then back at me. “Remind me again, ladies. What kind of hustling are we doing tonight?”

  ***

  Looking more or less ridiculous, the three of us made our way down the stairs and out to Wilson’s truck. Speaking of ridiculous.

  “What happened to your car?” Candy asked as I unlocked the doors.

  I was explaining Wilson’s logic about our stupid, stupid vehicle swap when Karen grabbed the keys and hopped into the driver’s seat.

  “I’m thinking of trading in my van for one of these babies,” she announced happily. “I need something big like this for my business.”

  I suggested she might consider a newer model, perhaps in a discernible color, and closed her door. Then I convinced teeny-tiny Candy to take the middle seat and climbed in behind her.

  “The Wade On Inn, James,” I ordered.

  I assumed my friends were ignorant of the kind of pool they would witness at the Wade On Inn, so on the drive out I explained the basics of nine ball—that the balls are racked in a diamond shape, and only the one through nine are used.

  “What’s the goal?” Karen asked.

  “Both players pocket the balls in consecutive order, one through nine. The person who sinks the nine ball wins.”

  She stopped at a red light. “But what about one through eight? No one gets credit for those?”

  “Nope. The key is the nine.”

  “So, like, the eight ball isn’t important?” Candy asked. She had seen a lot of eight ball at The Stone Fountain.

  “Correct,” I told her and explained that in nine ball the eight simply goes in after the seven and before the nine.

  “This sounds pretty stupid.” The light turned green, and Karen hit the gas. “Isn’t it just luck, whoever gets to pocket the nine?”