Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

I was staring at the mess that was the other side of Oddities, hating that I was going to have to clean it up, when Betty Baumgarten called me and asked me to help her clear out Melissa's things. That was a surprise. Betty did not ask for help, ever. Even to find a teacup.

But it had to be more interesting than Ozzie's junk, and I owed Betty, so I said yes.

Even bigger surprise: When I got to the funeral parlor, she met me at the door and said, "I know you must have questions, Rose, so I'll keep this brief. Melissa and I were lovers once, and she left me everything. I don't know why. I don't want to talk about it. I just can't face doing this alone. Please don't ask questions."

"Of course," I told her. "I didn't know . . . about you and Melissa. I'm so sorry for your loss?—"

I stopped because she was shaking her head. "Melissa was not the great love of my life," she said, but her eyes were shiny and I was pretty sure she was going to cry once she was alone. I didn't want to do anything that would make her cry in front of me—she'd hate that—so I kept quiet, but what I really wanted to ask was "Who was the great love of your life?"

Because I am not stupid, I did not ask.

It took us three hours, but we cleared out Melissa's place, putting her clothes in bags for the Tinker Tailor Thrift Shop down the street and everything else into boxes that Betty said could go to me for Oddities if I wanted. "Poppy will love it," I told her. "And anything she can't use, she'll take to Goodwill for you."

The only things Betty kept for herself were kitchen things, nothing of a remembrance. I thought that was sad, that there was nothing for her to remember Melissa by, but then I thought about Max leaving and how I wouldn't want him to leave me anything that would remind me that he was gone whenever I looked at it. Betty knew how to set boundaries.

We didn't go into the basement, so I asked her if she wanted me to send Max and Luke to clean out down there and she nodded.

When we had the clothes delivered to Tinker Tailor and Poppy had come over to help us move all the boxes that she wasn't taking, Betty took one look around the empty rooms, handed me one of the kitchen boxes she was keeping, picked up the other, and closed and locked the door.

She was evidently done. Very efficient. She'd lost her sweet-little-old-lady persona, that mask she always wore, but she wasn't the badass with the taser that Junior had met, either. She was just . . . sad.

I was still holding the box, so I offered to carry it back to her cottage for her, and she nodded. She could probably have carried both boxes, but I didn't want her to be alone. Maggs needed a walk, so I whistled for her and she padded out of Oddities to join us, Poppy waving us on.

We went down the road to the bridge and crossed the Little Melvin, which put us next to the white picket fence around her property. Fernanda looked at her anxiously, or at least I think it was an anxious look. It's hard to tell with llamas. Fernanda ignored Maggs, and Maggs made it mutual.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" Betty said as she opened the door to her house.

"Are you being polite or do you want to talk?" I asked her.

She blinked at me, and for a moment she really looked like a confused old lady. "Talk," she said finally, and I said, "I'd love a cup of tea," and followed her inside.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it was just a comfortable old cottage inside, soft armchairs with ottomans, and beyond them an arched doorway into an immaculate red and white kitchen.

Betty put the kettle on, and I sat down at her oilcloth-covered table—red gingham pattern, of course—and said, "This is lovely. It must be nice living out here."

"It's quiet." Betty took thick white mugs from her cupboard and put them on the table, and then after a moment, opened another cupboard and got out a package of Oreos.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't Oreos. They were so . . . normal.

She sat down across from me. "I'm sorry, Rose. That took more out of me than I was expecting."

"It's hard to lose people," I said. "I'll be working in the shop and then something, well, everything, will remind me of Ozzie, and it's like somebody punched me in the stomach."

She nodded. "Melissa and I weren't as close as you and Oz. We didn't see each other every day, didn't work together. But we understood each other." She hesitated. "When people have a history like Melissa and I do, it's very hard to find people who understand . . . any of it."

"Coral," I said.

"Coral is a different animal from most of us," Betty said. "I admire her, but I don't understand her. Fortunately, I don't have to." Her voice became brisk again, as if she were reinflating, coming back to herself. "Your Max is looking into Melissa's death."

"Yes," I said, getting the feeling that this was why I'd been invited to tea. "Hers, and now Sid's."

"I heard about Sid," Betty said, basically dismissing him. "Sid I know nothing about. Such an unpleasant man." She reverted for a minute to the sweet old lady and then swung back to the raptor I knew was the real Betty. "Melissa was afraid of something." The kettle went off and she got up to make tea, and I was worried she'd change the subject, but when she got back with the kettle, a bowl of tea bags, and a plate, she settled down across from me again.

There were Lemon Zinger tea bags in the bowl. So she'd known I'd be here. Asking me to help with clearing out Melissa's place hadn't just been because I was Rocky Start's go-to for favors and fixers; it was because she'd wanted us to end up here, over teacups and Oreos, in her kitchen, talking about death.

"Did she say what she was afraid of?" I asked.

Betty took a very sharp knife from her pockets, unfolded it, cut the Oreo bag open, folded it again, and pocketed it. She pulled out a sleeve of cookies and put them on the plate, spilling them out to fill it.

And then she said, "No, but it was something serious because Melissa did not rattle easily. First time I've ever seen her that way, in fact."

She picked up the kettle and I put a Lemon Zinger tea bag in it and gave it to her. She filled the cup carefully and then pushed the filled teacup back to me and handed me a teaspoon.

"What do you think it was?" I asked, trying not to sound nosy as I stirred my tea and she made hers. I was nosy, of course, but it wasn't gossip I was after, it was information to take back to Max, which I'm pretty sure was what Betty wanted me to do.

"The only person she was ever afraid of, to my knowledge, was Herc." Betty frowned. "But Herc didn't kill her. He wouldn't have posed her or taken her jacket or done any of the fancy touches this person did. Putting an urn in her arms? It makes no sense."

"Could Herc have sent someone?" I tried, but she shook her head again.

"People who kill for Herc don't mess around. They don't pose bodies even if they want to. Herc likes clean kills." She met my eyes. "I heard somebody put Max in the Little Melvin." When I nodded, she said, "That wasn't Herc, either. That was stupid, an emotional move. If Herc wants you dead, you're dead, not wet and angry and alerted."

"So who wanted both Melissa and Sid dead?"

Betty shook her head. "It doesn't make sense. They had nothing in common. They didn't like each other, so they wouldn't have been working together on anything. Melissa would have nothing to do with Sid in anything; she despised him."

"What are you afraid of?" I said, keeping my voice gentle.

"I'm afraid somebody's picking off the old guard," Betty said. "And I might be next."

"Come into town and stay with us." She started to shake her head and I said, "Betty, you're a sitting duck out here. Come in where you're safe."

"I'm as safe here as I would be anywhere," she said. "And I have Fernanda to look after. I couldn't leave her alone out here. No, I'm staying here. I belong here. But I don't think whoever this is is finished. And I'm betting it's one of us, the old guard, that drops next."

I picked up my cup and sipped my tea, trying to think of what to do. I wasn't trained for this kind of conversation. "What did she say that made you think she was afraid?"

"It was more her manner, hesitating over things, looking over her shoulder more."

"Did you ask her why?"

Betty nodded. "She said, ‘The past is never the past,' which wasn't news to any of us. We're all carrying that with us. But I think she meant hers was coming for her."

She began to sip her tea, her thoughts to herself, and I thought about my past coming for me, my ex showing up and wanting to see Poppy, which I didn't think would ever happen, but if it did, what could I do? I had debts to pay from back then, too. Maybe not the kind of debts Betty did, but still regrets and fears and guilt.

"Can you give me anything else to tell Max?" I said, and when she shook her head, I said, "Can he come out to talk to you if he has questions?" She hesitated.

"Have him call ahead," she said finally. "Fernanda does not like visitors."

"Right." I sat back in my chair. "How did you ever come to have a llama in the first place?"

"Fernanda was a gift," Betty said, a faint smile on her face.

I laughed. "Who gives llamas as gifts?"

"An old lover of mine," she said. "About ten years ago, this baby llama showed up with a note around its neck that said ‘This is your companion until I can return.'" She snorted. "Like he was ever coming back."

The "he" was new info. Betty was bi. Then I thought, Of course she was. Betty wasn't missing out on anything in life. I should be more like Betty. Not the llama, but in general. Although a llama could be good, too.

"He must have been something," I said. "To be the kind of guy who sends llamas."

"Well, he was Russian," she said, smiling into her teacup. "They have their own ways."

Betty had had a Russian lover who'd sent her a llama.

"I should definitely be more like you," I told her, knowing Max would never give me a llama.

"No," Betty said. "You should be more like you. If there's any part of you that you haven't buried completely."

That was so rude and so unlike Betty that I sat back. "I'm not?—"

"Rose, there are parts of you that are so repressed I'm not sure you can get them back." Betty met my eyes squarely now that she wasn't thinking about Melissa. "You're not going to last forever. I know you knuckled under to Ozzie for survival, I know you've given up everything to keep your daughter safe, but it's your time now. It's just you. You can be anything you want." I gaped at her, and she said, "What do you want, Rose?"

She waited for the answer, and I finally said, "I don't know."

She frowned. "Try harder."

I took a deep breath. "I want Poppy safe and happy."

She closed her eyes. "For you. "

"I want Max," I said, "but he's leaving."

"And he's not a goal," Betty said. "He's just somebody else you can serve."

I blinked at her.

"What do you want? Just for you?" she said again, and I realized, I really didn't know.

"Can I get back to you on that?" I said. "Because that's a really . . . big question."

"Even bigger than who killed Melissa," Betty said. "Because in the end, that won't matter. You know, she hated it here. She wanted out. She kept taking jobs because she wanted enough money to disappear. I kept telling her, ‘Just go,' but she stayed here doing a job she hated, taking jobs on the side she hated, and for what? She died miserable because she wouldn't break away."

"She was taking jobs?" I said, confused about how you could freelance as a mortician.

"Wet work," Betty said. "She was killing people for money."

"Oh."

Betty just looked tired. "If Oz or Pike had found out, they might have taken her out. I got tired of keeping her secret, but I understood her reasons." Betty shook her head. "She's gone, that's done. But you're here. Except you're just taking up space and wasting air if you don't have any dreams, anything to work for. For yourself. You can't define yourself by other people, Rose. Sooner or later you have to look inside to see who you are. And right now, you're empty."

"Why are you saying this stuff?" I said, finally goaded beyond politeness.

"Because your time is not infinite." Betty stood up. "Any of us could die tomorrow. We could be the next Melissa. And if it's your time, as you lie bleeding out, will you think you've lived your life? Or everybody else's?"

I stood up, too. "I have to go."

Betty nodded. "Yes, it's time." She smiled then, so sweetly. "I'll be in later this week for a teacup, dear."

"Oh. Good," I said faintly and left to find Maggs waiting by the door.

"I'm kind of waiting for you to apologize for all of that," I said when I was outside again.

"No," Betty said from the doorway. "You needed to hear that. You can thank me later. Thank you for helping me with Melissa's things." Then she smiled and shut her cottage door in my face.

I looked down at Maggs. "Son of a bitch," I said, and Maggs did the dog equivalent of a shrug and bounded down the path to the trail along the river.

Fernanda watched us go.

* * *

I was so stunned that Betty had been that personal that I just followed Maggs as she trotted off on the narrow trail. It wasn't so much that Betty had been rude, which she never was, it was what she'd said. Did the whole town think I was just a drone, serving others?

Well, why wouldn't they? That's basically what I was.

I was so caught up in thinking about my lack of dreams that it took me a minute to see that Maggs was going the wrong way, away from the bridge back to town, but I had to keep following her. What was I going to do? Tell Max that his dog had gone into the woods and I came home without her because I had to think about who I was?

It did occur to me that Maggs was just the latest in the long line of loved ones I'd followed instead of going where I wanted to, but that was just self-pity.

Maggs stopped at a stone bench overlooking the river opposite Rocky Start, so I stopped, too, and sat down. The Little Melvin burbled at me, the water rushing over the rocks like music, and though I knew it had been brutal on Max, I could have listened to it forever. At least it wasn't telling me that I was empty.

I felt empty.

Maggs went up a set of stone stairs cut into the embankment. I knew those led to an old building we could see from across the river in the winter when the trees were naked. I'd never gone to see it up close, and Maggs, while a darling, did look a lot like a wolf, so I followed her up the steps in case somebody was there, anti-wolf and armed.

I paused when I got to the top of the stairs. It wasn't just a building, an old barn or something, it was a small cottage in the trees, missing pieces of its dark slate roof, its paned casement windows open and in some cases broken, but still beautifully proportioned. It must have been lovely once, not large, maybe two long, sizable rooms stacked on top of each other, with two narrow gables on each side and a massive wood door on the end nearest the path. A fairy-tale cottage, if your fairy was fairly grim.

And quiet. It was so quiet. The only thing I could hear was the river. Paradise.

Maggs was at the door so I went to join her, surprised that the path was so clear and even more surprised when I realized somebody had cut back the encroaching weeds and bushes that must have once crowded the cottage. And recently, too, from all the new growth that was trying to make a comeback.

So somebody owned this place and was going to fix it up. I was envious, which was dumb: I didn't have the time or the money or the inclination to have a second home in the woods—especially one I could see from the street outside my house—and the last thing I needed was another complicated job. I had Poppy and the shop to rehabilitate.

Shut up, Betty.

I really wanted to look inside. I left Maggs at the door and went around to try to look through the windows. If I stood on tiptoe I could see in, Peeping Tom-ish, and there were enough windows that the light inside was good.

The inside, from what I could see, was not. A lot of the wood was sagging, probably rotted, and the furniture was sparse and plain, cheap stuff, nothing I'd want to rescue. A stone staircase went up the middle of the ground floor, helping to divide it into two rooms, and I would have had the wall between them down in an instant to make one big room, the staircase being the only divider for that floor. And there was a huge fireplace on one end. That would be great in the winter cold. It would be a complete gut job, but . . .

But I watch too much HGTV.

I went around and tried the heavy oak door, but the padlock held. I bent down and studied the lock. I needed my lockpick kit?—

No, that was insane. I was not going to pick the lock on a house that belonged to somebody else . . .

Because you're such a model citizen, Rose? Because you always take care of everybody else and have no dreams of your own. Because you're empty . . .

Fuck you, Betty.

I bet Betty would have loved it if I'd broken in. Found a place to sit, brought a picnic lunch, put up some curtains, made dinner, slept with the sound of the river in my ears . . .

You can't have that, Rose, I thought, and then I heard Betty in the back of my brain saying, Why not?

Well, that was just great. First Coral's voice in there telling me to have sex with Max and now Betty's telling me to get what I wanted, if I ever figured out what I wanted. Of course, Coral's suggestion had turned out to be a really good one, no regrets on that.

But why would I want another house, someplace else to keep clean, another place to worry about electricity and plumbing, another walk to shovel, a place of peace and quiet that nobody knew about where I could read and daydream and maybe think of something I wanted, maybe make more Outsider art, maybe . . .

So if nobody lived there—it really looked like it was abandoned—and I brought my lockpicks and a cushion, I could go inside and just be where nobody could find me. That might be okay. I wouldn't hurt anything. Maybe just read. Maybe bring a picnic from Coral's and sit by one of the windows and read something not practical, like a novel. Or just sit and listen to music. With my headphones on so I didn't bother the quiet.

Or just sit and listen to the river.

I'd kind of lost my grip on the Selfish thing; too much had happened with Poppy and now with Max sick and somebody killing people, and Betty needing help. But this, this would be absolutely selfish. And it really, really didn't look as though anybody lived there. Leaves had blown in through broken windows. Some of the furniture was tipped over, maybe from the wind.

Stop rationalizing, Rose, I told myself sternly, but of course, I didn't listen.

Selfish Cottage.

So maybe tomorrow I'd come back and bring a book. And one of the iPods and some food and drink from Coral's. And Maggs because there was a killer in town. Several, actually, but only one of them had come out of retirement. I hoped. So definitely Maggs. She was off a little way in the woods right now, having a blast, probably hunting rattlesnakes for Max's dinner.

Then the cold got to me and I remembered that even though we were having a warm November, it was still November, and it wasn't my house, and I had no right to open that padlock and sit in somebody else's place.

That would be wrong. And Selfish.

So I turned away from the window and called to Maggs and we headed back to town, the dog investigating things along the trail but never leaving my side, and me thinking about a cottage in the woods I was never going to have and didn't really even want.

So impractical.

I could hear Betty sighing as I thought about it.