Murder and Mayhem (3 page)

He looked up as a teenager in board-shorts raced past,
the steady beat of the base from his iPod spilling around him in a loud
repetitious beat. The air was suddenly filled with youthful exuberance as a
group of adolescent boys chased each other down to the beach narrowly missing a
young mother as she bustled past with a small child in tow, dripping ice-cream
along the pavement.

Two young women wearing brief bikinis roller-skated
past, their warm brown arms swinging in tandem with their feet as their
cascading hair danced about their shoulders, lifting and twirling with each
fluid movement.

“… he had the most gorgeous smile, and all night I
kept… Hey! Why don’t you watch where you’re going…?”

Danny looked up. An elderly man had unwittingly
stepped in their path causing the roller-skaters to swerve dangerously and
almost collide with a middle-aged couple.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Damn kids
think they own the place! There are other people here besides you!” the man
shouted. Without missing a beat the roller-skaters picked up the rhythm and
continued down the boardwalk taking up the conversation where they had left
off–without so much as a backwards glance…”

“Bubbie!” My sister’s voice stopped me mid-sentence.
“That’s not like you to use the F word,” she said in a tone of chastened
disbelief.

“I know, Hon. But it is for artistic expression. U
s writers do need to have the parameters of
decency widened a smidgen, otherwise how would readers get the feeling of light
and shade in each of the characters?”

Rosie nodded and conceded the
point. “Writers probably do need to take liberties the rest of us wouldn’t.”

They say that integrity is the first thing to go–but
I’d kept mine intact–this time at least, and so I continued…

“…The busy waitress rushed past on her way to the
kitchen, her arms laden with the remnants of someone else’s lunch, perspiration
ran down her cheeks as she tried to blow an annoying wisp of hair from her
face.

Danny caught her eye and signaled another iced coffee.
The waitress nodded and hurried inside.

As people walked past, Danny unintentionally picked up
on snippets of conversation–like surfing channels on a television set. With
nowhere to go and only an empty house waiting for his return, he chose to fill
the lonely hours surrounded by strangers who existed on the peripheral edge of
his vision. He leaned back in the chair and watched foam-tipped waves curl over
the sand–the old Beach Boys song he’d been humming drowned out by noisy
seagulls squabbling overhead.

Danny looked up as a tall, thirty-something woman
jogged past wearing low-rider black cycle pants and a lilac cropped top that
revealed a wide expanse of amber midriff. Her chestnut hair, pulled back in a
ponytail that hung halfway down her back, swung from side to side with the
momentum of her easy stride; the latest ear accessory iPod plugged into her
ears, a cell phone clutched tightly in her palm.

Danny followed her progress down the promenade as she
sidestepped her way through people crowding the walkway, the sun bouncing off
her hair in a hazy corona of shimmering jewels. When he could see her no more
he smiled sadly as memories came flooding back to the day when he stepped off
United Airlines Flight 870 at San Francisco’s International Airport and saw
Nicola Madison for the first time.

He could still remember what she wore the day she made
his heart pound, and his head spin…”

*****

“Well, what do you think?” I said, but when I looked
at my sister I realized she was sound asleep.

I pulled the covers around her and kissed the soft
woolen cap that covered her bare head, picked up my laptop and tip-toed out the
room, leaving the door ajar, in case she should need me.

THREE

Ross held the door open as I
followed my sister into the hospital waiting room. All the usual faces were
there. Rosie looked at the people that lined the walls in silent trepidation–and
smiled.

“Hi, everyone,” she said.

Some people looked up and acknowledged her
greeting-while other did not. But that’s okay. We all have our own stuff to
work through–those here more than most.

We wandered down to where my sister’s new friend was
hunched over a magazine at the back of the room.

“Hi. How are you doing?” Rosie asked, real friendly
like.

“All right I s’ppose.” The woman’s eyes cast back and
forth like a cornered animal searching for an escape route as she chewed
nervously on the side of her thumb. Rosie noticed the poor woman’s anxiety and
her mothering instincts kicked in. She looked at the man sitting next to her
friend, smiled, and said, “Would you mind moving so I can sit with my friend?”
The woman started to protest but my sister would have none of it.

“I’m sure
he
won’t mind. Do you?” she said
pointedly. The man shook his head and moved down one seat. Well, that’s not
going to work now is it? Three of us, one chair, you do the math! Rosie looked
at the empty seats at the end of the row and spoke loudly making allowances for
anyone with possible hearing defects.

“If everyone would just move along and make room so we
can sit with my friend it would be much appreciated.” We watched as people
shuffled down a few chairs until there were three vacant seats beside her
friend. 

“There you go, Bubbie, all sorted. Now don’t you girls
go talking about me while I’m gone,” Rosie said as she dropped her things on
the chair and headed for the change room back near the entrance.

I looked up at the television perched high on a shelf,
and sighed… another re-run of a re-run. Surely the network’s budget could
stretch to a few
new
episodes of the I Love Lucy show!

I looked at my watch. “What is this rubbish? It’s
nearly four-thirty; Judge Judy will be on soon,” I said to on one in
particular. I glanced around the room looking for at least one pair of eyes
glued to the screen–but no one displayed those zombie-like features.

“Anyone mind if I put Judge Judy on?” I asked loudly.
I didn’t want to change the channel if someone
was
watching their
favorite program and had looked away for a moment to talk to a friend, or
rummage through their bag searching for candy.

There were a few murmured no’s, so I took that as a
‘go for it’ and turned to Ross who by now was engrossed in the latest
motorcycle magazine, and said, “Darling, will you change the television to
Channel Five so we can watch Judge Judy?”  

Ross glanced up at the screen. “I can’t reach it,” he
said, lamely and went back to his magazine.

Why is it men give up so easily? If it was left to
them nothing would ever get done.

“Excuse me,” I called to the young man seated below
the screen and smiled ever so sweetly. “Would you mind moving so my husband can
change the channel on the television?”

The young man looked around and realized I was talking
to him. He nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose, grabbed his things and
as he moved to a vacant chair on the other side of the room I noticed the back
of his hospital gown flap open. Mmm… nice buns.

“Thank you,” I said as I glanced at my XXL-sized
husband held spellbound by the latest tricked-up Harley Davidson motorcycle
straddled by a buxom brunette with breasts the size of basketballs wearing a
barely-there bikini. I nudged him in the ribs to get his attention.

“There you go, love, all sorted.” I watched him slump
down the room and climb onto the chair under the screen. As I’ve always said,
people are only too happy to oblige, if you just ask them nicely.

My sister did a pirouette in front of me as she clutched
the open-fronted, washed-out blue hospital gown that had lost all its ties.
“Love the fashion,” she said.

“Hon, on you a flour-sack would look like a Bergdorf
Goodman gown.”

Rosie
sat down on
the hard plastic chair, arranged her gown modestly then turned to the woman
sitting beside her and asked her her name.

It must have been a really interesting article she was
reading because the woman’s eyes never left the page when she said, “Linda.”

Rosie held out her hand. “How do you do, Linda? My
name is Rosemary, but everyone calls me Rosie, or Hon. And this is my sister,
Bee.”

“Bea,” Linda nodded her head in my direction, withdrew
her hand and tucked both hands up under her armpits. I didn’t think it was that
cold in here.

“That’s Bee, as in honey,” I said wanting to make sure
she got the spelling right.

“That’s my sister, sweet as a little honeybee,” Rosie
said, smiling.

I thought I heard Ross mumble something about a sting
under his breath–but I could have been mistaken.

Not one to mess around with
emphatic descriptions or useless innuendos, my sister was always one to shoot
straight from the hip.

“So, Linda, tell me,” she said,
“have you come up with a good place to stash a body?”

Linda shuffled around on the
hard plastic seat, her discomfort was obvious.

I recall how Little Sweetie used
to fidget when she suffered with worms. Kids pick up all manner of things once
they start school. If Linda was a school teacher, that would explain her odd
behavior–and aversion to strangers.

“No,” she said.

“But, you are working on it?” Rosie prodded.

Linda chewed on the side of her thumb, and gave a
barely perceivable nod.

“Good. Then between us we should come up with
something suitable.” It was a rhetorical question requiring no answer
whatsoever.

“Mrs. Albertson!”

“Oh. That’s me up,” my sister said and went off to
face what I couldn’t even come close to imagining in the form of burning rays
and mind-numbing nightmares.

FOUR

I typed furiously, my fingers flying across the
keyboard, my mind filled with thoughts I couldn’t get down quick enough…

*****

September

The previous year

She hurried through the doors into the arrival lounge
of San Francisco International Airport, nudged her sunglasses to the top of her
head, and looked around. Her eyes scanned the room, stopped briefly on an
unfamiliar face, and moved on knowing it was not the one she was seeking.

From his vantage point at the top of the escalator, he
noticed the way the light caught her hair and accentuated the rich
chestnut-color. From where he stood he couldn’t make out the color of her eyes,
but there was no need–he knew what color they were. He took a deep breath to
steady his nerves, wiped his hands down the sides of his jeans and rode the
escalator down.

Nicola looked up to see Danny Richards coming towards
her. He was wearing faded blue jeans and a white T-shirt, his skin lightly
tanned, hair bleached blond by the Australian sun and surf. She hadn’t expected
him to look so good in the flesh… but did. Her heart pounded, her stomach
started doing flip flops and her chest tightened as she thought about the man
she was about to meet for the very first time, and wondered why she was here.
But as a smile lit up his face, it was a face as familiar to her as her own.
And when he spoke, it was with the warm voice of an old friend.

“Hello, Nicola,” the tall handsome stranger said
softly, and smiled.

Nicola Madison found herself looking into laughing
gray eyes and for a brief moment forgot to breathe. Her five-foot-nine-inch
height–with heels added–brought her to just a few inches shy of standing eye to
eye with this man.

“Hello, Danny.”

Nicola took a step closer and held out her hand. She
smelt faintly of roses… with just a hint of oranges.  Danny took her hold of
her hand and smiled into her eyes. They were almond-shaped, almost cat-like,
but they weren’t just green, like she had told him, they were the crystal clear
green he’d seen in glacial lakes across Canada. He was about to say something
but got lost in those eyes, dropping the threads of his thoughts.

Nicola’s gaze lingered briefly on his, then dropped
her eyes and withdrew her hand.

“How was your flight?”

“Long.”

“Did you get any sleep?”

“A little,” Danny said, grinning. “What about you?”