Burning Justice (2 page)

I
dumped
the ingredients for lasagna into the Meal-A-Tron, a large stainless steel machine that was part refrigerator and part solar-wave oven with a lot of arms and gizmos in between. It was a corner unit, and took up almost half of my kitchen. It had a computer display on the front where you could choose various recipes. I had the deluxe model, which had memory for fifty dishes, plenty for me.

The ingredients went into a large hopper on one end and, a few minutes later, came out as a meal on the other. The commercial claimed the meals were ‘just like homemade’, but mine always came out looking like gruel—a gray, pasty, lumpy mess. It didn’t taste much better than it looked, no matter what recipe I tried. But I didn’t cook and Artemis didn’t have a cooking program installed so it was either gruel from the Meal-A-Tron or eating out.

After choking down the ‘lasagna’, Artemis actually started cleaning. He did this every so often, when his sensitive electrodes picked up on the fact that I was getting annoyed with his non-performance. I took the opportunity to head up to the roof and consult with my unofficial consultants.

One had to sacrifice certain things for the convenience of condo living and one of those things was a garden. The rooftop was our answer to that.

I was lucky to live in a building with at least a few like-minded neighbors who also wanted a garden. Since there wasn’t any room on the ground for that, we’d taken over the rooftop and turned it into our own backyard oasis.

Carpets of real grass stretched out, green and lush. Splashes of orange, red, yellow, purple and white from the flowers planted in pots and raised dirt beds colored the five thousand square foot area. We’d even managed to get a few Japanese maple trees to grow in giant pots of dirt.

A privacy hedge blocked us off from the building to the right, whose residents were in the middle of creating their own rooftop garden. It seemed we had started some kind of trend. Unfortunately, the two projects had become rather competitive and we had to block their view. Rumor had it they were trying to one-up us by putting in a pool and you should have seen how they tried to outdo us at Christmas.

Even though it was early fall, many of the flowers still bloomed, especially the mums and pansies which thrive in cooler weather. The leaves on the trees were just starting to show signs of changing color. The area smelled of freshly cut grass and I instinctively looked for the new clippings, which we composted for use as fertilizer later on.

As I stepped through the doorway, a fuzzy black and yellow honeybee flew past and I ducked out of its way. Birds chirped in the trees, stepping up the pace to get the last of their business done before the sun went to bed. A chipmunk scurried across the white stone path in front of me.

Reclining on aqua lounge chairs in the middle of one of the grassy sections were two of my neighbors—my unofficial consultants. Lexy Baker-Perillo and Cassie Darling. The two of them were bundled in thick, knit sweaters even though the temperature was a pleasant seventy degrees. They wore gigantic black sunglasses and each had a glass of what looked like iced tea, the glass pitcher half full on the table next to them.

Lexy wore her hair in a silver ponytail. Cassie’s was spiked up on top of her head, the very tips of her snow white hair a shimmery pink. The two women had to be in their mid-nineties if they were a day, but I knew that behind those thick, dark glasses their eyes were as bright and intelligent as teenagers. New advances in anti-aging therapy had been kind to Lexy and Cassie. They took advantage of everything their doctors had to offer, including some of the cosmetic enhancements that could be performed right in the dentist's chair. I only hoped I’d fare as well once I got older.

The hopeful looks on their faces warmed my heart. Apparently, the two elderly ladies enjoyed our nightly rooftop visits as much as I did.

They jumped up from their aqua lounge chairs to greet me.

“Have you seen the pumpkin patch?” Lexy grabbed my elbow and steered me to one of the raised bed gardens. The best part of the rooftop garden was the fresh fruits and vegetables. There was something about eating food grown by your very own hand, and with precious few farms left in North America, most produce was shipped from out of the country and tasted like cardboard. The fruits and vegetables from our garden tasted amazing.

It being fall, most of the summer crops had been harvested and we were left with squash and, of course, Lexy’s pumpkins. Lexy had once owned a bakery a few towns over, in Brook Ridge Falls, and she was still an excellent baker.

She’d handed the bakery over to her great-grandaughter long ago but still loved baking and, since she didn’t get out much, pumpkin was now her main ingredient. She delighted us all winter long with pumpkin pies, pumpkin cookies and pumpkin bread. She canned her own pumpkin so that ingredient was always fresh. The others she ordered online and had delivered right to the building.

She parted the leafy greens to reveal a giant pumpkin that looked to be about three feet in circumference. “Isn’t that a corker?” She looked at me over the top of her sunglasses, her eyes bright and sparkly with life.

I nodded. “Wow. That’s gonna be gigantic.”

“You can say that again,” Cassie said. “It’s not even done growing yet.” Her brows furrowed together slightly. “Too bad there aren’t any more farm contests for us to enter it in. I think it would win a prize.”

Lexy’s face turned wistful. “You know, I think you might be right.” She bent down to pluck at a few weeds, her knees creaking loudly as she did. The wince of pain on her face didn’t escape me and my heart constricted. I knew that with the current anti-aging drugs and treatments, women could live to be well over one hundred, but I had to wonder how much longer I’d have these two women around. They’d become like surrogate grandmothers to me and I’d come to depend on them for advice as well as enjoying their company.

“You know, I can have Artemis come up and weed,” I offered.

Lexy dismissed my offer with a wave of her hand. “Nonsense. I like doing it, it keeps me feeling young.”

“It’s about the only exercise we get.” Cassie’s pink tips bobbed as she pulled out several weeds herself.

“So, did you get a new case today?” Lexy looked up at me hopefully.

“Not really. A woman did come by, but I don’t think that I’ll take the case.”

Lexy’s brows shot up. “Oh, really? That sounds juicy. Do tell.”

The women stood up and we all went and sat at the large, round cedar table that was set exactly in the middle of the garden. The table could accommodate twenty people. We used it for dinner parties, sometimes inviting people from other buildings although I didn’t think we’d be inviting anyone from the building on the right anymore.

We also had smaller, vintage wrought iron bistro tables set around the edges. Lexy had nabbed them from her bakery,
The Cup and Cake,
when her great-granddaughter had redecorated. They added a cute touch to the garden, but they weren’t really all that comfortable.

Cassie shuffled over to the lounge chairs and grabbed the pitcher of iced tea and an empty glass. My lips quirked up in a smile, knowing that the ladies had been waiting for me and had even brought the extra glass.

She poured some of the tea and set it in front of me, the ice cubes clinking against the glass as she did. I took a sip, expecting cool, smooth tea but got something that burned slightly on the way down.

I raised my left brow at Cassie, who shrugged, then brought her own glass to her smiling lips. “Bottoms up.”

I sipped slowly as I told them about my meeting with Evangeline Barrows.

“Why do you think she was making it up? I remember John and Jack talking about quite a few cases of spouses killing each other. Don’t you, Lexy?” Cassie asked.

Cassie had been Lexy’s assistant at the bakery and they’d both been married to homicide detectives. That was one reason why I valued their advice so highly. Over decades of living with the men, they’d gleaned quite a bit of information on human nature and homicide. Not only that, but the women had sleuthed a few cases themselves and their advice was always spot on.

Lexy’s eyes turned misty as they usually did at the mention of her husband, Jack Perillo. Jack had lived a good long life, but the anti-aging advances didn’t work as well on men and he’d died seven years ago. Cassie’s husband had died ten years ago, and the two widows had moved out of the city and into the condos five years ago.

“Oh, yes, I remember plenty,” Lexy said. “But the spouses never used to have any advance warning. I don’t recall Jack ever saying once that a spouse had been suspicious. And with all the cases I solved with my grandmother, I remember the spouses were so devious that the poor victim never had a clue.”

Lexy’s grandmother was the other reason I valued their opinion. Mona Baker, or Nans as Lexy called her, had been quite the amateur sleuth sixty years ago. She’d been the ringleader of a legendary, elderly crime-solving cartel who used advanced technology to solve cases that sometimes even baffled the police. I’d read about Mona and her posse of grandmother sleuths in the old newspapers as well as listened to many of Lexy’s reminiscences of them. The cases they’d solved were very similar to the ones that usually came my way, so I valued Lexy’s opinion and knowledge very highly.

Cassie nodded. “Yeah, it’s no wonder your gut instincts were telling you something was fishy. What are you going to do?”

“My first instinct was to give the money back and call it a day.”

Lexy nodded. “I remember Nans had a similar case. It ended up that the husband wasn’t even having an affair. He loved the wife. It turned out he was planning a big anniversary trip to Europe and that’s why he was acting all strange and secretive. Maybe that’s what’s happening with the Barrows?”

I pressed my lips together. “Maybe, but I don’t think so. I got the distinct vibe that something was going on with the Barrows … or at least with Evangeline.”

“Well, I commend you for feeling a responsibility because she gave you the money. But I don’t think that it’s necessary in this case. She forced that money on you and you should not feel obligated to do her bidding.” Lexy snapped her fingers and a white dog sprang up from underneath a maple tree and trotted over obediently. “Good girl, Sprinkles.”

Lexy bent down to pet the dog who looked up at her lovingly, its neck making only the slightest mechanical sound as it turned its head. Sprinkles was a pet-bot, the most convenient kind of pet because it didn’t eat, drink or poop and was programmed to be always obedient and never eat your shoes.

Lexy had said it reminded her of the dog she’d had when she’d first married Jack and couldn’t resist, especially since the pet-bot was such low maintenance.

“I think you guys are right. Artemis thought I should give it back, too. And it
was
my instinct all along, so now that everyone is in agreement, I know that’s exactly what I’ll do.” I glanced out over the edge of the roof at the horizon. The sun was just about to set, coloring a bank of fluffy clouds a bright pink-orange. One benefit of the precariously thin ozone layer was that we enjoyed spectacular sunrises and sunsets from this vantage point on the roof, which was why we usually met up here at sunset.

Sometimes I liked to linger up there after dark, laying on the lounge chair and staring up at billions of bright, twinkling stars and watching the slow-moving dots of hundreds of satellites that circled the planet. I’d probably do that tonight, since the ‘tea’ was making me feel loose and relaxed and I suspected I shouldn’t be driving, even if my PTV could pretty much drive itself.

I could return the envelope tomorrow at a more respectable hour when, hopefully, I could catch Evangeline home alone and not cause a problem with her husband, who would likely be home from work by now.

Just as I was settling back into my seat and thinking about asking for another glass of tea, Cassie ripped off her sunglasses and sprang to her feet.

“Incoming!” She pointed west and I jerked my head in that direction, putting my hand up to shield the glare of the setting sun.

A black dot was making its way through the air toward us at a high rate of speed. A delivery drone.

“Did you order something?” I asked them.

Lexy nodded, pushing herself up from the table. “I put in an order at Mart-Azon for some sugar and spices for my baking. Get ready, ladies.”

We stood in a row, our feet shoulder-width apart, knees bent at the ready as we watched the dark spec grow larger. The black delivery drones were about the size of a large dinner plate. Four claw-like legs extended from their underside. The legs were used for landing and also as arms to hold—and usually mangle—the packages they carried. Twin cameras with sensors on the front reminded me of malevolent, beady eyes. The cameras would often track you in an uncanny way.

We’d discussed many times the possibility that these drones were actually spying on us as they delivered packages. It wasn’t that far-fetched that they served some other purpose because they weren’t very good at package delivery, which was why we were standing at the ready.

The drone zoomed up to us, then hovered above, looking down like some sort of comic book bad guy. It made some squeaky noises that sounded like high-pitched creepy laughter as it dangled the package precariously from its claws, zooming first in front of me, then Lexy, then Cassie, then flying over our heads behind us, making us turn around to keep it in our sights.

I didn’t know if all delivery drones acted this way or just the ones that came to our rooftop. I imagined anyone having a delivery for the first time would be terrified at the way the machine was acting. But we were used to it. We stood our ground as it zoomed around, waving the package.

Then, it backed up about thirty feet and launched the package toward us with the force of a rocket.

“I got it!” I yelled as I dove for it like a linebacker diving for a football in the end zone. I caught it, clutched it to my chest and landed, thankfully, on the grassy part of the roof.

The drone hovered over me, the wipers above its maniacal eye-like cameras dipped in a V shape giving it the appearance of frowning. Then it let out what sounded like a high-pitched laugh right before it zoomed off as quick as a hummingbird disappearing to nothing in the span of a few seconds.