Killer Cousins (16 page)

“We also saw each other at Cajun Delights and the drugstore.”

I nodded. “How well do you know the people in your quitters’ group?”

He leaned forward. “If you want to know whether I’ve heard confessions from all of them, the answer is no.”

“I wouldn’t ask that.”
Unless I thought you’d tell me.
“But how about the women?”

He glanced toward the front door, where two attractive women had gone out moments ago.

“I don’t mean do you know them, like really
know
them,” I said. I actually wanted to discuss Ish with blow-up dolls but thought I’d get him off guard by talking about the women first. This conversation didn’t seem to head where I’d hoped.

He chuckled and rolled his round shoulders back. “There’s Fawn. I believe she’s doing quite well with the program. And Jenna. I’m not sure about her. And your cousin is having a rough time but making a go of it, right?”

“Probably. And how about the men?”

He considered me a long moment. “You aren’t just doing a survey, are you? For your cousin’s sake?”

“No. One of the men from your group died in her yard. I fell on Pierce Trottier. Accidentally, of course. And I can’t get it out of my mind. I didn’t know the man, but I’m trying to learn what I can about him.”

“Pierce seemed a good man. He wanted to break his smoking habit.”

“And he did.” I said it, then gave myself a mental head slap. “Sorry.”

He grinned slightly. “What else can I tell you?”

“How about the other men in your group?”

“There’s Kern. He dresses well.”

“I noticed.”

“And our leader, Ish.” Father grinned and shook his head.

“Is he funny?” I couldn’t imagine that being true.

“I think so.”

I decided to throw out my explosive information. “Did you know that Ish has an inflatable doll? A life-size one.”

Father smiled wide. His foot pumped faster.

“You find that humorous, Father? I find it quirky. The man is strange. He has a blow-up doll. It was hanging in his window.”

Father chuckled. His foot kept still.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine what would be funny about a grown man having something like that,” I said.

Da-dunt, da-dunt, da-dunt,
played in my purse. I answered my phone.

“Cealie, we have a big problem.” The manager of my San Francisco office sounded frantic.

“Betty, relax,” I said. “Whatever it is, we can fix.”

“It’s our Sterling Bryst account.” Sterling Bryst was one of our largest customers, selling numerous personal products. “Instead of their sunscreen ad saying
Great Protection from Sun,
our copy said
Great Protection from Fun
.”

“Protection from fun?” I said with a laugh.

“And it’s too late to change. It’s on the air.”

“Damn.”

I saw the priest glancing at me.

“Cealie, I am so sorry,” Betty said. “Liz edited the work, and I looked over it. But my grandson had a high fever and I was so worried. I wasn’t paying enough attention.”

“How’s your grandson now?” I asked.

“He’s better. I’m so sorry I let you down.”

“That’s okay. Don’t worry.” I worried for the both of us and shoved up to my feet, my mind whirling. How could I fix this? What would happen if I didn’t?

I might lose my largest account. I could get sued and lose my entire business. And all of the people who worked for me would lose their incomes.

“I need to go,” I told the priest as I left his pew. I got out of his church, which might have been a good place to come up with answers, but not with him in it. Not with him thinking it was funny for Ish to have a doll dangling from his ceiling.

I drove away, letting Betty Allen give me all of the details she wanted to, then I reassured her that it would be fine. None of this would be a problem.

And then I envisioned the man I’d seen on the cross in church and his mother. I prayed to them that I was right.

Chapter 14

I returned to Stevie’s house where I would have quiet. I needed to come up with solutions for the situation with my business and then make important phone calls.

I went in the front door, locked it, and took my laptop out of my carry-on bag. I brought the laptop to the kitchen table.

“Bad news,” I told Minnie. I set her down next to my laptop. For some reason, I felt reassured having something alive beside me.

I powered up my laptop. The Sterling Bryst account was also tied to the Woodlands account. I knew the owners of both companies planned to merge soon. They would create one of the largest conglomerates in the personal hygiene and grooming industry. If I lost the Sterling Bryst deal, I could shut down my company before they did it for me.

I scrolled on my cell phone and reached Betty Allen. “Betty, are you sure? You’ve seen the ad?”

“I’m afraid so. I did go over the copy. I checked, you know? I read the words and thought they were correct.” She didn’t speak for a beat. “Cealie, you are so considerate. You try to make things right. But I screwed up. That’s all there is to it.”

“You didn’t create the ad.”

“No, but I should have checked closer. You know that. I’m the manager here, and proofreading copy is my responsibility.”

I couldn’t argue the point.

“You’d have to let me go, but I’ll keep you from having to do that and save myself some humiliation. I quit.” She sighed. “I love this job—and you. But I don’t work for you or the company any longer.”

“Betty, I don’t want to lose you.”

“I’m sure you’d want to make everything all right. But it’s not. And it’s mainly my fault.”

What could I say? She was my good friend. She’d managed that office ever since my husband and I started the business. Our first office was there in San Francisco. I wanted her to stay—but couldn’t let her. I’d warned all of my office managers about what they needed to do. They did not have to actually write copy, unless they wanted to create something for a special client or take on something they enjoyed. But they did have to closely proofread everything—everything that other employees in the office created. They were responsible for customer satisfaction. Without it, they could lose their jobs.

“But you know the satisfaction clause,” I said. “The customer must inspect his copy thoroughly before he accepts it and signs off for the job. Did they do this?”

“Yes.”

We were silent. Both of us knew we could insist that, legally, Sterling Bryst was at fault for not inspecting the job we did before they accepted it. But we also knew probably eighty-five percent of our clients did the same thing. Whichever of their employees signed our invoice probably scanned our work. But most of those people were accustomed to working with money. They knew finances, but probably not grammar as well as we did. They expected that
we
knew what we were doing in that department. They trusted us to know.

And now that trust was gone.

Betty sighed. “I’m going to tell Liz she’s in charge now, until you decide something else. Maybe hire a new person to run this office. Cealie, I’m sorry I let you down.”

“You didn’t.”

“I need to go,” Betty said and hung up.

I stared at my cactus. “This will turn out fine.” I hoped that belief would sink in to me. Taking out a legal pad, I copied from my laptop the contact info for some of our largest accounts.

I called the first one and reached the CEO within minutes.

“Hey, Cealie!”

“Hi, Frank.” I used his first name, as he’d told me to do. “How’re things going in Orlando?”

“Real good. Great weather. The Marlins should have a great season.”

“I hope so. Frank, I’m really calling to see how you’re doing and to see if you have any problems with my company.”

“The work your office does for me works out great. We keep getting more business. Our customers must like your ads.”

“Good. Please let me know if you have any complaints, okay? I can hop a plane and be down there.”

“You’re the best, Cealie. I wish all the companies we work with were like yours.”

“I appreciate your vote of confidence.” We hung up. I phoned more people to check on their satisfaction. If the talk about our agency was basically good, perhaps if others heard about our major mistake, it wouldn’t go over too badly. Maybe people who worked for me wouldn’t all lose their jobs. I was going to have to contact Sterling Bryst’s CEO. First, I needed to speak with a few others, make sure they were satisfied.

The
plat-plat
of footsteps registered as I was entering another number. Someone was walking from the den, not from the garage door where Stevie would come in.

I jumped up, throat dry, scanning the countertop for anything I might use as a weapon. I’d rather run out the back door but the gate might be locked. And it dragged, making it hard to open. I yanked up the coffee carafe, hoping it was still hot.

It was cool, plastic. I needed something heavier.

I threw open the cabinet doors under the sink where Stevie kept dishwashing detergent. “Yes,” I whispered, seeing aerosol cans.

I grabbed window spray and bug spray. I considered the oven cleaner, but only for a second. I couldn’t do that to a person’s eyes.

Armed with my sprays, I determined I’d use one or both. “Get out of here!” I yelled in my huskiest tone. Deciding window cleanser wouldn’t do any harm, I dropped it and grabbed a heavy pot. “Go away! I’m warning you!” I tried mimicking a man’s voice, slamming the pot down on the stove, hoping the noise might scare off the intruder.

A hand swung forward as the person stepped into the room.

I shrieked and slammed the pot down.

“Golly, Cealie, what’s going on?” April quit walking right inside the kitchen. Cherish cowered beside her mom. “Why are you holding that pot up like that? Are you swatting mosquitoes or something?” April grinned.

I swung my gaze to the child. She ducked behind her mother. I lowered my arm with the pot.

“I thought a man was coming in.” I set the bug spray on the countertop and slammed the pot down on the stove. Oops, the stove didn’t look too good. It was an electric cook top, black to match her refrigerator and dishwasher. And now one burner was cracked. The central part of the stove looked dented.

“You broke it.” Cherish stood near her mom, glaring at me and the stove.

“Not on purpose,” I said.

Cherish and April hung gazes of guilt on me a moment longer.

“How’d you get in here?” I asked.

April showed me her key ring. “Cherish said somebody came home, so I figured it was you and Stevie.”

“She’s teaching today. Didn’t you know that?”

“Yes, but she could have come home early.” April blew a pink bubble. It withdrew. “Or maybe with you here, she’d take some time off to visit.”

“She can do that? Schools let teachers take vacation days whenever they want?”

“No. But since you’re at her house, I thought she might call in sick to take you around to some places.”

“Does Stevie lie?”

“I don’t know. I just thought she might.”

Cherish moved to the table and picked up Minnie. “What’s this?”

My instinct was to grab my plant out of her hands so she wouldn’t break it. “That’s my plant, Minnie. She’s like my friend. Isn’t she cute?”

Cherish pursed her lips.

“Don’t touch that thing. It’ll stick you,” April told her.

Offended, I said, “My plant doesn’t stick people. Go ahead, try it. But don’t press too hard.”

The girl touched the thick green stem. “That don’t hurt. It feels good,” she told her mom, then pressed all the fingers of one hand against my plant.

I took Minnie from her. “But most cactus plants really pick,” I said, “so you won’t want to touch them.” I set Minnie on the countertop near the back wall.

Cherish gave me harsh eyes. Her eyes shifted toward the glittering objects hanging over the sink, catching sunlight.

“Pretty, aren’t they?” I asked, hoping to distract her from my plant. “And all of those pretty rocks.” I stared at the stones Stevie had arranged on a small table. “Do you ever play with them?”

“She don’t let me.”

Pop. Pop-pop
. April stopped the rapid-fire popping of her bubble gum. I didn’t ask her to stay and visit. I couldn’t stand that gum. The way she chewed it made me think she needed to use up nervous energy.

“Just tell Stevie we came by,” she said, for which I was grateful. She and her child started toward the front door.

I walked with them. “Did you need something?”

“Cherish wanted to show her the new outfit she got.”

“Where is it?” I asked, seeing their hands empty.

Mother and child turned toward me. April said, “She’s wearing it.”

Cherish stuck out her lower lip and hung her head. Her outfit, a periwinkle blue shirt and skirt, were not new.
Panther Girls
was spelled out with rhinestones. The
t
was missing, so the first word said
Pan her
. There was a pull in her knit skirt.

“Yes, I see now,” I said, trying to repair the child’s spirit I had maimed. I stooped next to her. “This is such a pretty shirt and skirt.”

She spun away and went out the door.

April gave me sad eyes. I gave a sorry expression back to her. She walked out.

I locked the front door, my chest feeling like it held much less oxygen than before. My mouth often didn’t wait for my brain to kick into gear before shooting off, but this time I’d hurt a child. I would have to find some way to make amends.

Maybe I could buy her some cute outfits, I thought, spirits brightening. Then I realized that would only remind her I knew what she wore was secondhand. The new toy she’d come to show “Aunt” Stevie hadn’t been new and this new outfit wasn’t, either. And why did the child always want to show off her things to my cousin? Didn’t she have any real relatives?

Probably none around this area, I determined, also wondering if they had friends. I hadn’t noticed any people coming to their house. Of course, I hadn’t been looking. They could have many friends I wasn’t aware of. And I didn’t need to concern myself with their business. My own was causing enough problems.