Games of the Heart (Crimson Romance) (12 page)

Now the ick was about Ab Normal and the implication of human trafficking, even through association.

What was I to do about Pastor Bob’s adoration for the leader of PSA, Delta Cheney, if in fact Cheney was as evil as I was led to believe? Wasn’t the Cheney woman Pastor Bob’s goose that laid the golden egg, his high hope to make money to build our much-needed youth center? If I went to the newspaper, that goose would be cooked, even if Petra’s allegations weren’t true.

I wouldn’t turn my back on Petra and those unspoken cries of help for babies and children I might never know. Would Pastor Bob even give me the time of day if I presented what I’d learned to him confidentially? From what I’d seen of him these last weeks, Pastor Bob wouldn’t even listen to Petra’s version of the PSA when he had his “cheerleader” Delta Cheney puffing up his ego. He was already counting on the sizable cash donation from PSA.

I spent the next few minutes chilling. I couldn’t move from the open refrigerator. I stared at the oversized mayonnaise, gallons of orange juice, refrigerator cookies to bake for VBS the next day, and the bright white interior.

What if I took what I had learned to the police or the district attorney? They’d bust a gut. It was hearsay. I had nothing to back it up but the eyes of a young woman and a letter in Polish, which could have been a grocery list for all I knew. I would have called Cowboy Henry, aka my grandfather, but he was out of touch with reality and probably doing the tango with the kitchen mop. I could call Vera, but a tiny voice inside asked what her loyalties were. Sometimes people who seem to be great listeners are the biggest gossipmongers, and she seemed to know a lot of tidbits about the congregation. Could I call the District Council with a half-baked crime saga? They’d say Pastor Jane Angieski was being the certified buttinski they already knew I was. Would it add fuel to the fire come Friday and my special appointment with their representative?

I prayed. Do you ever have those times when you’re praying when you suddenly realize that perhaps God has even more important things on His plate than what you’re dishing, like keeping the solar system in place and making sure gravity keeps things stuck? When I got no immediate response from my Boss, I tossed back a cola and jumped when my cell rang. Since He doesn’t ever call, I knew He’d put one of His servants on the line for me.

The big, squawky laugh that greeted me was none other than my pal Geraldine. The woman never did small talk, but jumped straight in as if we were in the middle of the conversation.

“You been fried yet? That heat’s bad for the skin, girl. Can’t you get the District Council to transfer you to Washington, D.C., so we could pal around together? Or have you ruffled so many feathers that you’ve been exiled like some ol’ Bible prophet? You getting punished? There’s nothing wrong in the world with Las Vegas — some of my favorite quarters have stayed there in their slot machines — but it’s hot as you-know-what. Maybe that’s the District Council’s way of telling you to shape up or you’ll have even more heat from them?”

“Do you ever just breathe? Did you call to talk at me or with me?”

“You, girl, you. Just had a feeling I needed to call you.”

I’d never ever been so happy to hear the blasting, foghorn voice of the senior senator from California in my entire life. I loved Gerry, even though when she gushed about Gramps it got a bit too personal. She was gaga for him and he hardly knew she existed, or so it seemed.

“What’s up? But first, how’s that rascal of a grandfather, my dearest snuggle face?”

I am not a pint-sized person, which I know you know. But compared to Gerry, I’m petite. She was a plus-size model in the days when it wasn’t acceptable to be a woman of size. She made it okay to be big and beautiful with a line of clothing for generous women, a company where she’d been the CEO. Now she used her ample measurements to influence fellow lawmakers in D.C. — at least that’s what she’d told me time and again.

“I’m between a stone wall and San Quentin.” I sighed.

“You’re going to prison?”

“Might as well. And don’t you dare put me on hold, even if the president is calling.”

“I’m sitting on my balcony, overlooking Georgetown, sipping some bubbly water with a slice of lime. I’m not alone. Come on, guess who’s here.”

I’m not keen on games, unless it’s something like kiss and not tell. Wait, that’s another story. I bit. “Donald Trump? Brad Pitt?”

“How did you know? This is frightening,” she shrieked. Okay, it was more than a shriek. A shriek is when you see a mouse charging at you with twenty of its chums. It was a scream like you might heard or make when you’re sipping a cola and munching peanuts as your plane plunges a thousand feet and the oxygen bag bounces off your forehead.

I screeched back.

Gerry was glued to the inner circles of Manhattan, Boston, D.C., and the West Coast with the high, mighty, and well-connected, but was she entertaining
the
Brad Pitt or Mr. Trump of “You’re Fired” fame?

“Got ya.” She gagged with laughter. I could imagine the drama queen’s head was thrown back and big brown eyes were watering. “I got you, I got you. I have my new best friend with me. Meet Miss Louella Antoinette English.” The phone went quiet, and I swear there was a sniffing sound. “Louella, I’d like you to meet Jane. Say arf arf, or do they say bark? Hers sounds like buff, buff, buff. Besides, I never know with Yorkies. Except when they growl.”

“I do not believe this. You bought a canine accessory? You’re the normal one in our friendship. What’s happened to you?” I was nauseated thinking of how she’d drag a pooch of minimal poundage around with her, probably on a rhinestone leash and wearing matching outfits. I shivered.

“Yeah, it’s that bad. I am bone weary of being alone.” She was whispering, which to regular people would be an “outside” voice. “I needed something alive when I got home, something to snuggle. Adoption was the answer. I’m not going to tell Lulu, that’s her nickname, until she’s older that she’s adopted. I’ll figure out the right time. When she’s old enough to handle it.” She made some kind of clucking sound. Then said in a normal voice, which meant booming, “Besides, Jane, your grandfather left me high and dry. Probably out with some woman half his age.”

“Try a quarter of his age.” I didn’t mean to make her scream.

“That hurt, Jane. You are not funny. He isn’t returning my phone calls and the e-mail isn’t accepted; it keeps bouncing back when I put a return receipt request on it. I sent a certified letter to him a week ago, and he still hasn’t retrieved it from the post office. I even had the local Carlsbad city police stop by his house. He refused to answer the door. I know he’s alive and kicking someplace, Jane, because you would let me know if he wasn’t. Would you?”

“I would.”

“So I found a replacement.”

“A replacement? Are we talking about a barking trinket?”

“She is challenged in the size, okay, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a full blooded D-O-G.”

Did she actually think that midget ragamuffin could spell or be offended? “Can we talk about my problem now?”

“Still
my
turn.” She took a deep breath and said, “I was going to get a male dog, call him Henry. Didn’t want to have to find a doggie psychiatrist after I’d had him neutered. So Lulu is now my entire life, and your grandfather can take a flying leap and stick his head where … ”

I didn’t give her the opportunity to continue what he could do after he took a flying leap or any head sticking, but yelled into the receiver. “Stop. It’s my turn.” Then I told her about Gramps’ crises, the emotional, physical, and spiritual ones. I told her exactly where he was and what he was doing.

The weirdest thing happened next. If I hadn’t been part of the conversation, I wouldn’t have believed it. Gerry was blubbering. I felt like dirt. “Oh, sweetie, shouldn’t have told you everything straight out like that.”

“Jane, I figured you knew.” Snorting and nose blowing followed. “I love your gramps even if I’m wrong for him. Your little grandmother, who had a disquieting resemblance to June Cleaver, was his world. Not to take her place, but I thought maybe I could become his wife anyway. I’m too loud, I’m too aggressive, and I’m fat. Boy, am I fat. And keep getting fatter.”

“Put a sock in it, you are perfect.” I meant that.

“Yeah, then why doesn’t the man know it?”

“Just shut up for a second and let me tell you why I need you to put on your super-sleuth tights and cape and scrounge information.” I spilled my tales of woe, including Harmony, the dog Tuffy, and Pastor Bob’s admiration for a woman who was selling “guarantees” and policies to return illegal and immoral adoptions from inhumane orphanages in Poland.

“I thought serving on the energy commission was vexing.” She blew her nose, and then made some goo-goo sounds. “I don’t know anyone, at least I don’t think I know anyone, in the World Health Organization or Mental Disability Rights International, but my name isn’t Senator Geraldine English, commonly called ‘That Big Ol’ Trouble Maker on Capitol Hill’ for nothing. Give me a few days, honey, and I’ll see what I can dig up. You know this gal likes nothin’ better than a good shake-up, especially when too many fat-cat bureaucrats are up for reelection. We’re talking fun on Capitol Hill. It sounds like Cheney is in the baby business for the wrong reasons. I’m adopted, you know.”

“No, you are?”

“Mom told me when I was about three how I’d been chosen. I liked that, because she’d chosen Dad. Never knew what happened to the birth parents. To me the chosen ones were the real thing. All twelve of us were chosen kids; being adopted was the norm at home. My story can’t come close to some hoochie-coochie beauty from Poland, who is probably as big as a dime, in today’s money.”

“Cool your jets.”

“You don’t know Henry’s real feelings, girl, or you wouldn’t be in such a tizzy.”

Was my grandfather ever going to return to himself, or would he be lost in cowboy heaven forever? “What should I do, Gerry?”

“You’re asking me? Is this about your senior pastor’s adoration for a crook that is managing to swindle unsuspecting women and men and hurt babies? Possibly being an accomplice to child endangerment and manslaughter? And human trafficking? Or about the child who is living with you, and her little dog, too, who is probably anorexic or maybe was abused in the foster home? Or a little matter of the Dancing with the Vegas Stars gala event you’re suddenly heading up? Wait, what about the District Council’s visit?”

“Friday. They’re coming to meet with me privately.” The sentence came out with a squeak at the end. “I love you, Gerry, but you we need action, not tears.”

“Put a lid on it. That was Lulu. She doesn’t like whiners. I told you’d I’d do some checking on the crook, the Cheney woman. Gotta go. Lulu just did go and I have to get paper towels.”

I sat with the phone cradled in my hand for long enough to numb my bum, then waddled to my cubbyhole office, where I sat for the longest time, maybe ten minutes, without thinking of chocolate or coffee. I snapped my laptop shut, slipped it in my briefcase and headed for Starbucks.

Once more that day, I stood in line, drooling over which chocolate chip muffins behind the glass showcase would come to Mama. I heard my name, and Carl Lipca touched my forearm. Like in some stupid commercial, his eyes sparkled as brightly as his professionally whitened teeth.

He didn’t jump back or throw the little couple in front of him to save his manliness from a Pastor Jane Angieski attack. Could I have been mistaken, and he didn’t really have a look of lusty longing for one Petra Stanislaw? He winked and I inhaled, then he rubbed that same eye. Whatever was I thinking? Was I thinking? That doesn’t require a response, thank you very much.

“Small world.” He chuckled. Our eyes met because we were the same height. “Been meaning to call you.”

“Me?” Did that really come out as desperate as it sounded? There’s never a way to make sure, especially after the fact.

“Yeah, you know I’m with the
Journal
, the Vegas paper.” I saw his mouth move, but I wasn’t listening. I was with a futile attempt to get grown-up and professional thoughts back in their upright and locked position, rather than thinking arm candy and lustful fantasies.

He spoke straight over the tiny twosome between us. They didn’t even pretend they weren’t listening; the woman actually craned her neck forward as Carl said, “Let me be frank.”

“Carl’s a really nice name,” I responded, still in my fantasy world of a drive-through wedding chapel with Carl the Cutie, since I’d instantly moved past arm candy to “I take thee for my lawful husband.” Caffeine deprivation was the only thing I could blame. I shrugged, returning to earth.

“No, I want to be frank about why I wanted to talk with you.”

“Oh.” Nix the wedding. Glad I wasn’t mentally picking out what to include in my bridal registry.

He smiled at the husband and wife. Then said, “I’m doing an article on Cheney, and I heard from a viable source your church and Pastor Bob Normal were darned cozy with her. What’s the story on that?”

I ordered a jumbo-sized coffee and a jumbo-sized chocolate chip chocolate muffin. I needed fuel if I was going to get VBS going and solve eight or ten other problems that had entered my sheltered little world. Now I was going to be asked about Cheney.

“Ask Pastor Bob. You know I’ve only been on staff a few weeks, taking over for the other youth pastor while she’s on maternity leave.”

“I did a Google search on you because something was whispering to me when you were introduced. I mentioned it when we met, I think, but then I did some more digging.” He slipped a twenty on the counter and paid for my stuff and the coffees for the couple between us, too. Then he grabbed an espresso and motioned me to a table.

A smart, normal woman might have skedaddled at that, but I wondered what he knew about the Cheney woman and PSA. Okay, I’ll tell the whole truth and nothing but it. Carl was a nice accessory with my coffee, and a girl can pretend.

I took a mega bite of muffin and mumbled, “You know Delta?”

“Not well.” He slugged back a good measure of scalding java without a flinch.