3 Loosey Goosey (8 page)

Yeah, well, if she did, I’d be talking to baby brother about that.

“While you’re there, check our page. I added a new banner last week.”

Betty was in charge of Dusty Deals’ online presence, including our website and sites like FriendTime.

I typed in Dusty Deals. A brand new spiffy page came up with a brand new header featuring an all old West display of saddles, branding irons, and spittoons. I glanced over my shoulder at the furniture Phyllis had brought in over the last month. The tone of the shop really had changed.

“Uh, do you think it reflects–”

Betty shot me a sharp look. “What?”

“Nothing. It’s wonderful.” I swiveled back around and waited to feel the press of beads against my throat, choking out my traitorous breath. “I wonder who else has a page,” I babbled, covering my slip in sanity.

I typed in a few business names, making disparaging comments about how each needed a better, more professional header – more along the lines of what Betty had designed for me—as the pages loaded.

A customer entered the store and, back in a better mood, Betty sauntered over to help him. I turned to the computer and entered one last name. Tiffany’s.

A page popped up. I realized immediately that I wasn’t the only business owner who could do a better job monitoring her online presence.

The page was plastered with pictures of geese. Well, a goose anyway. Pauline, it appeared, was quite the online cover girl.

I scrolled down, checking out images of Pauline holding a sign that said “I am more than my liver,” dressed as a baby saying “Have you seen my mother?” and wearing a HA! T-shirt with the caption, “Do more than sit and gander. Join the protest against pâté.”

There were more, all posted by the goose herself, but I’d seen enough.

I flipped off the computer and lowered my head to the counter.

How in the hell was Ben going to explain this?

Chapter 7

Half an hour later, I was still mulling over what to do about Ben and ringing up a sale when the phone rang. Betty answered and then held the receiver out to me. Caught up in my worries, I didn’t think to be suspicious.

“Where is your brother? Is he with you?”

My mother had caught me.

“Did you know his van got towed?”

I didn’t, but it made sense. Even laid-back Helena eventually had incapacitated vehicles removed at some point.

“By the police!”

Well, that was who normally had cars towed.

“They’re checking it for evidence. They think your brother killed that chef!”

Okay, this, if it was true, put things in a different light, but my mother couldn’t know why the Lemon was towed, not sitting in southern Missouri. Then again, she shouldn’t have known that the Lemon was towed, period. Deserted vehicle collection was not something that made the
Daily News
website, not even on the slowest of news days.

And even if Stone had called her, he wouldn’t have told her that, would he have?

“Why do you think the Lemon was towed?”

“I told you, because the police think Ben killed that chef!”

I took a breath. “No, I mean, how do you know it was towed at all.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I know people.”

“You do?” The idea that my mother had connections in Helena that I didn’t know about was more than a little disturbing.

“I have friends. They keep me informed, more informed than you do.”

Ah, the judgment. But I didn’t have time to dwell on that, not right now.

“Friends? What friends? Here? In Helena?”

“Helena, Bozeman, Bangladesh. I have friends all over.”

There was no missing the note of pride in the last statement.

Then it occurred to me. “FriendTime.” My mother had been building a network of spies through the Internet. Who knew how long she had been watching me? What all she knew?

Frozen by the possibilities, I stuttered a bit.

“I didn’t say that,” she replied, playing it coy and doing her best to elevate my paranoia to the highest level possible.

After a moment of silence – stunned on my part, gloating on hers – she continued, “So, do you know where your brother is?”

I didn’t, and after much effort, I managed to get off the phone without admitting to my complete failure as an older sister. I’d danced around the question, telling her I had spoken to him – I didn’t say it had been yesterday – that he was fine, and that I’d have him call her as soon as he could.

“He’s busy you know, working.”

“Working.” She made a sputtering sound. “Working at making trouble. You tell him-–”

I held the phone out and made noises as if a customer had just asked me a question, then said into the phone, “I’m sorry, I have a customer, but I’ll have Ben call. I promise.”

I hung up the phone and handed it to Betty. “Call someone, anyone. Just keep the line busy for the next half an hour.” It might cost me sales, but getting away from my mother was worth it.

Then I grabbed Kiska and scurried out the back door.

I found Ben where I’d last seen him, sitting at a table in the organic grocery store, drinking coffee and chatting with his fellow rebels. This time, though, they were manned with laptops.

I bit down on my tongue to keep from blurting out some judgment, at least until I had him away from his allies.

“They towed the Lemon. Did you know that?”

He nodded and went back to the computer.

“Did you talk to Stone?”

“Not today.”

Damn his Zen soul, he seemed frustratingly unconcerned about everything.

My jaw tightened and my personality slipped. I went into mother mode. “Get your stuff. We’re leaving.”

He blinked at me, stunned, I’m sure, at my sudden interest in familial closeness. Honestly, I was a little stunned too.

“Mom called me,” I gritted out. “Did you know she has people watching me?”

He blinked again. “You mean you hadn’t guessed that before?”

It was my turn to blink. He was right, of course. It had been stupid of me to think I was here 2,000 miles away from home freely making my own choices and living my own life.

“Do you want to get your car or not?” I asked, covering my annoyance with more annoyance.

“They won’t give it to me. Not yet.”

I frowned. If he hadn’t had the Lemon last night, how had he gotten to the Egg? I asked as much.

“I didn’t. Eric loaned me a sleeping bag, and Pauline and I stayed here.” He gestured to his right. I took a step that direction. Pauline stared at me from atop a nest of black sleeping bag.

She was wearing tie dye today. It brought out the amber in her eyes.

“Is she supposed to be in here?” I asked.

Ben glanced at the other HA!ers. “Not really.”

Something akin to concern wrapped around my heart.

Damn.

“Have you showered?”

“No.”

Double damn.

“But you’ve eaten,” I said with false perkiness.

“Sure.”

I relaxed. I wasn’t that bad of a big sister. Still, there was the sleeping on the floor thing, the shower thing, and the possibility that his goose could get kicked out onto the street at any moment.

Shaking my head at my own stupidity, I pushed the lid of his laptop shut and jangled my keys. “Let’s go.”

After that, Ben didn’t argue. Maybe he was finally seeing the light of listening to his older, wiser sister, or maybe he just wanted a shower, but whatever the case, he picked up Pauline and followed me out to my rig.

Where Kiska was waiting.

This was going to take some negotiating.

I looked at Ben and gestured toward Pauline. “I don’t suppose you have a crate or something for her.”

The look I got put me in my animal-restraining place.

I’d left the window cracked so Kiska could get a breeze. He pressed his nose up against the opening and inhaled loudly. He scratched at the door, and he talked. He did everything his little furry brain could come up with to encourage me to open the door and bring on the goose.

Except, of course, sitting nicely and calmly and pretending she didn’t exist.

Pauline, for her part, remained calm, aloof even. As I paced around my rig, looking for inspiration, she turned her head away and stared at Mount Helena.

Then I did the unthinkable. I waved my brother into a hiding spot behind a delivery truck. With him and his goose hidden, I put Kiska on his leash and walked him around to the back.

“You are sitting back here today,” I announced with what I hoped was confidence. Leaving him leashed, I wrestled him into the back, a space normally reserved for groceries and auction finds, and slammed the hatch shut.

Then I called to Ben, and, with my brother sitting in the back seat holding onto Kiska’s leash and Pauline riding shotgun next to me, we pulled out of the parking lot.

It wasn’t horrid. Pauline seemed to approve of her spot, preening and moving in circles before settling down to take in the sights. Kiska... Well, Ben did a good job holding him in place, leaving my malamute with no option aside from vocalness. Which he practiced frequently and at high volume, alternating demands, complaints, and pleas on a nice regular schedule.

“So, no Lemon?” I asked Ben while Kiska was taking a break from yelling at us to inhale almost as loudly.

“Nope.”

“I’ll take you to the Egg.” I wasn’t thrilled with being put back into the same position I’d been when I was 16 and Ben was 13, and I’d had to tote him around to every flag football game and tween party in a three-county area.

But picking him up at the campground each morning and dropping him back off at night would be manageable. And, most importantly, it would get our mother off my back.

Feeling responsible and in control, I pressed the accelerator down and picked up speed. The faster I dropped off Ben and his goose, the faster I could get back to my own life such as it was.

It wasn’t until we were at the turn for the campground that my lovely in-control feeling disappeared.

Something was wrong.

The police cars told me that.

I glanced at Ben in the rearview mirror.

He seemed unconcerned, relaxed even.

A holiday weekend was fast approaching. Some other camper could have caused a problem. This didn’t have to be about my brother.

Except we weren’t in the Helena city limits.

A vision of Ben, Pauline, Kiska, and me making some kind of Thelma and Louise cross-country run from the law flitted through my mind, but I quickly deserted that option.

I flipped on my turn signal.

Clinging to the hope that there’d been a jail break and the escapee had holed up in a nearby tent, I bumped my rig across the one-way bridge that stretched over the creek and around the circle drive.

With only two days until the start of the holiday weekend, the place was filling up with squatters intent on holding one of the first-come, first-keep camp sites. Over half the spots were occupied by tents. Two others held police cars, and parked in front of the Egg was what I recognized as Stone’s car.

My stomach writhed. But, I told myself, the crazed escapee story still held possibilities. I glanced around, looking for dogs, helicopters, or some other sign of a massive prison break, but all I saw was Stone, leaning into one of the police cars while a uniformed officer talked into a radio.

As we slowed to a stop, Stone stood.

Ben dropped Kiska’s leash and climbed out to meet him.

Kiska’s ears perked. He didn’t move from his exiled spot, but I could see anticipation building in his eyes. He was waiting, playing it cool...

I glanced at the goose and back at my dog. The air was thick with possibilities: feather-spewing, malamute-scrambling, total-chaos-creating possibilities.

My brother had reached Stone. I twisted my lip. There was no way I was missing out on whatever conversation Stone was having with Ben.

I was, after all, the older sibling. He needed my guidance.

But then there was Kiska and the goose.

Which of the troublesome two to leave in my rig? I could, of course, trust Kiska alone, but that would mean appearing in front of Stone carrying a goose dressed like a reject from a Grateful Dead concert.

I did have some pride. But then again, I wasn’t that sure of Pauline’s toilet habits and climbing back into a vehicle loaded with goose poop was not in my top ten ways to finish off my day.

Kiska’s eyes flickered, and, sensing the standoff was almost over, I made my decision.

I grabbed the goose, and jumped out of the car. Kiska moved too, but I beat him. I slammed the door shut just as he moved into place in the front seat.

Feeling inordinately proud of myself, I gave him a wave.

Pauline honked but seemed undisturbed. I tucked her under my arm like a feathered, potentially violent football and went to do my sisterly duty.

As I approached, Stone stopped whatever he was saying. I stroked Pauline’s head and praised her for her exemplary goose behavior.

Pauline did not seem to appreciate the flattery. In fact, she seemed downright outraged by it.

With no apparent cause, aside from my slight touch, she hissed loudly. I pulled back my hand, but it wasn’t enough. The goose had been set off. She flapped her wings and honked and did everything within her fowl powers to escape my loving hold.

When she turned her beak on me, she won. I dropped her like the giant hissing monster that she was and jumped backward three feet.

She flapped her wings in a self-satisfied manner, stretched her neck, and then, after casting me one last warning glare, she stalked toward the Egg.

Neither Ben nor Stone nor any of the other officers seemed concerned with her approach. They returned to their discussion, which had been interrupted by her outburst, as if the grand mammy of all dinosaurs hadn’t put them in her sights and wasn’t zooming in for the kill.

Stone and Ben walked a few feet until they were positioned directly in front of the Egg. The detective pulled something from his pocket and held it out. My brother, trusting fool that he was, took it.

I started forward, intent on providing my brother with advice on dealing with the annoying detective, namely to share as little as possible and insist on a lawyer.