Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

I had walked back to the shop, trying to get myself to calm down. My plan was to put the CLOSED sign out again because I was not in the mood to have somebody like Mrs. Baumgarten come in and try to bargain me down a dollar on a two-dollar teacup. Mrs. Baumgarten is a sweet old lady, but that does not stop her from being a very sharp bargainer, so she's good exercise for my brain and usually a lot of fun—she keeps a llama as a support animal, I think that says it all—but not today. I had wallets to check.

My cheek throbbed and I added "ice and arnica" to my to-do list.

When I opened the front door to go into the shop, the first thing I saw was Coral, coming in from the kitchen with a plastic bag in her hand. The plastic bag had her very thin knife in it—apparently the knife had been holding her picture hat in place—and I rethought whether the hat needed a crow. After meeting Junior, I decided a skinny knife was better. From now on, all my picture hats were going to have skinny knives. Of course, first I was going to have to get a picture hat. And a skinny knife.

Coral nodded at me, her hat bobbing, and I decided that it still needed a crow. The thing was huge. Room for a crow, a skinny knife, and probably a bat and an automatic weapon .

"You had a knife in your hat?" I said to Coral.

"Women should always carry protection. It's a dangerous world." She sounded grim and very un-Coral-like. "And this town just got a lot more dangerous."

"That really was Ozzie in that picture?"

She nodded. "We need to tell Pike we have got Outsiders."

"I saw him. He knows. And now we also have wallets." I pulled Junior's wallet out of my right apron pocket and Max's out of my left—good thing he'd stopped searching when he'd found his—and she looked over my shoulder as I went through them. Lots of cash in both, no credit cards in either, driver's license in both; but Junior's also had a condom (bleah), the DNA report along with that picture of Ozzie and the vampire, and a keycard to the best hotel in Bearton (which wasn't saying much).

Ozzie had always carried cash. No credit cards. Not even a driver's license.

Junior's license said, "Joseph Oswald-Stafford, Junior." His picture looked like an actor, all varnished to look pretty as he smiled at the camera. His address was an apartment in DC.

Max Reddy's license picture was pretty much just Max Reddy, craggy and unsmiling, grim and dangerous, but with more meat on his bones and looking really irritated to have his picture taken, basically a mugshot. His address was in Colorado. Some town I'd never heard of.

So they were from different places. That was something. Not much, they could still be working together, but something.

"Stafford," Coral snarled, looking at Junior's license.

"You know him?"

"No, but I have heard of Serena Stafford. Ruthless bitch. If that's his mother, she's trouble."

"Max told Pike that the SUV had ballistic protection," I said. Whatever that meant.

Coral nodded. "It rode that way. Who is Max?"

The old yellow wall phone behind the counter rang .

"Max is the guy who threw Junior into the street," I said, and Coral cooed approvingly as she tucked the bagged knife in her purse.

I put everything back in the wallets and then put Max's in my big apron pocket. The phone rang again, so I went around the counter and answered it. "Oddities."

"Rose, I just heard about Oz," Barry, Ozzie's lawyer, said, his gravelly, whisky-scarred voice coming through the line in a growl. "I'll be back in town day after tomorrow."

"Back in town? Where are you?"

"I'm in Atlanta," Barry said. "We need to talk."

Those words are never good. "Barry, did Ozzie leave a will?"

"He left instructions," Barry said. "A big sealed envelope that I was to get from Pike and open in the presence of the people whose names are on the outside. I got the names so I could notify people. Your name's there so this is your notification. Pike is bringing it for a reading the day after tomorrow at my office. Thursday, one o'clock."

That was a relief, that Ozzie had actually made plans on the off chance he died.

"Did he make a will?" Coral asked me.

"I don't know," I told her. "Just the sealed envelope with names on it. Might be a will in it."

"Was one of the names Norman's?" Coral said. "If there is no will, then Norman is probably going to get the whole thing."

" Norman? " That was appalling. Ozzie's awful brother Norman getting his hands on Poppy's and my home? "God, please, no."

Coral reached for the phone, and I gave it to her. "Barry, did he mention a son? Was there a Stafford on the envelope?"

"Hi, Coral," Barry said, and I was close enough I could hear him. "No, he didn't have any kids. To the best of my knowledge," he amended, as if afraid he might have to testify about it someday. Lian told me once that she didn't think Barry had ever spent a day in court. As a lawyer. "No Stafford, either."

"Ask about a funeral," I told Coral, and she said, "Barry, did Oz say anything about what he wanted for a funeral?"

"No," Barry said, "But Pike will know what Oz wanted. "

I took the phone back. "What about Norman? Is his name on the envelope?"

"Yes."

"Oh, God," Coral said. "I knew it."

"You haven't called him, have you?" I asked. A few seconds of silence meant that yes, he had called Ozzie's brother. Really just hell. That meant I was going to have Norman the Moocher on my ass, too. "Who else is on that envelope?"

I heard rough voices in the background. They did not sound happy.

"I gotta go," Barry said. "I'll be back on Thursday. Meeting at my office at one." And then there was just a dial tone.

"Gee, thanks," I said into the dial tone.

"Now what are you going to do?" Coral said as I hung up.

"Put the lasagna in the oven. And go to Barry's office at one the day after tomorrow." I handed her Junior's wallet. "Here, give this to Pike when he comes by tonight. Oh, and he said he had a shirt that needed mended, too."

She took the wallet. "Come over later and I will give you tea while you mend. Want me to give him Max's wallet, too?"

"No. If Max wants it, he can come here."

Not that I wanted to see him again. But I had questions. And lasagna. And he looked hungry. A full stomach might lead to relaxing and chatting.

Coral smiled. "Excellent idea."

I shook my head. "I just need some questions answered."

Coral said, "That is not all you need," and smiled wider as she went out the door with her bagged knife and Junior's wallet.

I went out to the kitchen to deal with dinner and hit the ancient iPod that was out there. Poppy had asked for one for Christmas when she was eight, and Ozzie had bought her a new one every time a different version came out, sometimes repeating himself if they were different colors, so we probably had a dozen of them, scattered all over the house, including the one in the shop. He even had one in the car, full of Warren Zevon. At least, all I ever heard was "Roland, The Headless Thompson Gunner" or "Lawyers, Guns and Money" when he'd take the earbuds out to hear me say something.

I dialed up Lenka's "Trouble is a Friend" again on impulse.

I didn't look at the impulse. My subconscious is not something it's healthy to examine too closely. I'm sure it had nothing to do with a guy named Max, who was definitely not going to be a friend and who I was probably never going to see again since, last time I looked, Pike was running him out of town.

Damn it.