Aloe and Goodbye Read online

  “Indeed, it is. But, we’re not here to talk about such awful things,” the principal said, taking a seat behind her desk and squinting at Allie’s paperwork. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Shaw. And hello, Allie. I’m Mrs. Heard, and you’re right, you heard it here first.”

  The principal tittered at her own joke as she squinted at us. Allie didn’t laugh, but she smiled politely.

  “What kinds of things do you like to do?” Mrs. Heard asked Allie, leaning forward to engage with her. Allie shrugged her shoulders.

  “She’s a little shy,” I said.

  “No, I’m not,” Allie whispered to me. “I just don’t want to be here.”

  “I hope you’ll take your time making up your mind about that. Now, we’ve got you assigned to Ms. Tyler’s homeroom. That’s your first period. She’ll get you set up with a locker and give you the rest of your daily schedule. I think you’ll find she’s a warm and welcoming person—she’s new herself,” Mrs. Heard said. Allie nodded, finally making eye contact with the principal. “But, you know, she’s going to want you to participate in class, so you better start using that voice of yours.”

  “Okay,” Allie said, trying her best to speak up so that Mrs. Heard could hear her.

  “Wonderful. Now, your mom needs to finish some paperwork. Fortunately, we have already received your records from your old school.” Allie looked at me, puzzled. Victor and I had dealt with some of the administrative details while Allie and I were in limbo and staying in a motel for a few weeks after we entered witness protection. “If you want, you can go into the yard and meet some of your new classmates. Recess just started for the six, seventh, and eighth graders, so you’ll have a little time to get acquainted. We’ll see you tomorrow at eight thirty.”

  Allie did as the principal suggested and went to the playground, though I doubted she’d do much mingling with her new classmates. At least she went out there. It was a start.

  I completed and signed the requisite forms with the principal, focusing on making sure I didn’t accidentally write our old names. Then I gave her Allie’s newly-minted birth certificate, proclaiming her Allison Shaw instead of Alicia Martinez as her original birth certificate had. There was no more Alicia Martinez, just as there was no more Patricia Martinez—that was me, before all of this began—since that horrible night in Las Vegas with Claudia.

  She’d always been the wild one, compared to me. She’d left our family at twenty-two, hooking up with a rapper named Caldrón, whose real name was Ricky Sanchez. He met Claudia after she won a backstage pass for one of his concerts from a radio show. That night, she put on her tallest heels, her lowest cut dress, puffed up her hair, and plumped up her lips and went to the stadium where he and his band were performing. Ricky fell for her, and soon Claudia was traveling with him. She stuck with him even as he went through his ups and downs. Had I only understood what had happened to Ricky, I could have done something before our lives were changed forever.

  The school bell rang, signaling the end of the break for the middle school kids. I retrieved Allie, who was lurking outside the office door. We headed first to the small market, Al’s Food and Booze, which pretty much said it all. According to the little plaque above the door, this had apparently been a grocery store for the last one-hundred-plus years.

  I hefted a large bag onto one hip while Allie stuffed a few things into her backpack to carry. As we descended the hill toward our house, I was glad I hadn’t purchased more groceries because what we did buy was getting heavier by the minute.

  As we came around the curve on the final stretch of our journey, we spotted a sheriff’s SUV parked in front of our house. This couldn’t be good. As we approached, a cop got out of the car and headed toward us.

  “Hello, ma’am. I’m Deputy Sheriff Darla Cotton. Do you have a few minutes to speak with me?” She wore the standard beige uniform shirt with a men’s style tie and dark khaki slacks. Her low, tight bun, slender face, and long nose gave her a hawkish look, which I hoped didn’t reflect her attitude. If I wasn’t mistaken, I’d seen her earlier in the day at the house next door.

  “Um, sure, I guess. Come on up.” I was trying to be a little more tentative than the usual don’t-mess-with-me attitude I’d often had in New York.

  “What’s your name?” the deputy asked, with a forced-casual demeanor. At nearly six feet tall, she loomed over me, setting me on edge.

  “I’m Ruby Shaw, and this is my daughter Allie.”

  I didn’t want to talk with this woman—but it didn’t seem like I had much choice. Trying to keep my hands from shaking, I unlocked the front door while juggling a bag of groceries.

  “Why don’t you come back to the kitchen. I need to put these groceries away,” I said. Allie set her backpack down on the kitchen counter and went off to her room, plugging in the headphones for her iPod on the way. “Please make yourself comfortable,” I told Deputy Cotton, offering her a chair.

  The deputy sat down at the kitchen table while I unpacked the perishables from the grocery bags.

  “Looks like you’re still getting settled,” she said, looking around.

  “We just moved in yesterday, so there’s still a lot to do. Now, what can I help you with?” I asked as I put a box of half-melted ice cream sandwiches in the freezer.

  “As you’re likely aware, your neighbor, Mrs. Greta Stramtussle, was found dead in her living room earlier today. I’m checking with the neighbors to see if anyone heard or saw anything unusual.”

  “Well, it was bizarre. Was there some sort of tour last night? I saw someone with an ax chase a few people out the door of my neighbor’s house. The group was initially frightened, but after that, they laughed it off, and the hooded figure went back inside.”

  “We’ve got a guy who runs tours. He said there was one last night but didn’t mention it had been one of the scarier ones. Derek Stramtussle—”

  “I take it he’s related to Mrs. Stramtussle? That can’t be a common name.”

  “He’s her son. He leads historical tours through town. Paradise used to be a ghost town, you know.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that,” I said, trying to be as agreeable as possible.

  “Tourists seem to like the spooky tours the best. Derek led the tour last night, but at the time, his mother wasn’t there.”

  “She wasn’t hacked to pieces, I hope.”

  “No, that whole thing with the guy and the ax, that was just Derek’s team trying to spice things up to give the tourists a thrill,” she let out a little laugh, caught herself, and went back into law enforcement mode.

  “Thank goodness,” I said, shaking my head. I’d seen too much real violence lately. The image of my brother-in-law, gun in hand, standing over a man lying on the carpet and the ear-splitting sound of the gun firing, shocked me to the core each time I remembered it. I couldn’t imagine someone wanting to purposefully scare themselves after the real terror I’d experienced.

  “Does this mean you’re concerned about the circumstances of Mrs. Stramtussle’s death?”

  “Until we get word from the medical examiner, we’ll assume she died of natural causes. It’s standard operating procedure to ask around, just in case,” the deputy said.

  “But what’s the story with the ax-wielding character?”

  “It’s an old tale about a man who died when he had his head chopped off in a firewood-cutting accident.”

  “That seems unlikely,” I said, tempering the sarcastic attitude I usually sported as I stuffed a bag of green beans into the refrigerator’s crisper.

  “Well, yes, it does, but these things happened so long ago, there’s no way to know what the facts are. They say a headless ghost haunts this street.”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts, so I guess I don’t have much to be worried about.”

  “The ghost tours have brought in business, though everyone wishes it was more. Well, most people do. Tourists come to town, and they usually stick around and spend some money,” the deputy said with a shrug. “This is just a formality, but do you have an alibi for last night?”

  “I was here with Allie. She was asleep, so she can’t prove I was here.”

  “Hm. No one else can vouch for you?”

  I thought about Victor. He could tell her that he’d dropped me off, but after that, even he couldn’t verify what I did after that.

  “No, sorry. You’ll just have to take my word for it. Now, is there anything else I can do for you, Officer Cotton?” I asked, hoping to hurry the woman out the door.

  “That’s Deputy Cotton.”

  “Oh, sorry. I wasn’t sure how to refer to you.” Didn’t she have more important things to do than grill me or correct my usage of law enforcement terminology? I certainly did, like putting the rest of the groceries away.

  “Thanks for telling me about what you saw last night.” Deputy Cotton rose and headed for the front door. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing my official interrogation was over. “So, you and your daughter just moved in? What do you think of our little town?”

  It was too good to be true that the deputy would be done so quickly with her questions.

  “We like it so far but haven’t had time to see much of anything other than the café, the school, and a quick stroll through downtown.” All I hoped now was that the deputy would leave and not start asking questions about where we’d come from.

  “It was good to meet you. I’m sorry to have had to intrude on you like this. I will see you around town.” It was probably my big-city paranoia talking, but that sounded more like a threat than a promise.

  “Yep, maybe so.” Did I actually say maybe so? I had to remind myself that in this tiny town of five hundred, there was no doubt about it, I’d be running into her much more often than I’d like.

  The deputy turned to leave, but paused in the entry.

  “So, where are you and your daughter from?” Deputy Cotton asked, her attitude shifting from formal investigation mode to that of a curious neighbor. Of course. Just my luck that I’d have to recite my new background story to a sheriff’s deputy who was probably an expert at identifying liars.

  “We moved from Colorado.” Lie number one. “My daughter was having trouble fitting in there.” Lie number two. “I’ve always loved Arizona, so we decided to try Paradise.” Lie number three.

  “What kind of work do you do?” Answering this question was going to be more difficult.

  “I’m freelance right now—”

  “In other words, unemployed,” the deputy said. Clearly, she’d heard this before from scoundrels and slackers she’d interviewed.

  “I used to work in retail sales, but I’m looking at other opportunities right now.” That sounded pretty good. I’d practiced those sentences dozens of times. I hoped she wasn’t going to grill me about where we were from in Colorado. I could tell her Winterfield, but more than that, and I was sunk.

  “Good luck with that because opportunities here are few and far between. That’s how I ended up working for the sheriff’s department. There weren’t many choices, and I refused to work at the dry cleaners.”

  Funny, but the dry cleaners seemed like the perfect place to work. Laundry comes in dirty and wrinkled and leaves clean and perfectly folded. The biggest problem was the idea that I’d have to be helpful to dozens of people each day. I didn’t always play well with others. That’s what I loved about being a studio artist. I could be alone and listen to music and paint with no one to bother me.

  “Let me give you some advice. You may hear some buzz around town. It can be gossip central here,” the deputy said.

  “What do you mean? About me?”

  “You arrive, no one knows a thing about you,” Darla said with a matter-of-fact shrug. “Not many people are moving here except artists, for the cheap rent and the funky ambiance, and you don’t seem to be one of those.”

  I wished I could tell her the truth. I was an artist. But I was an artist in hiding, not able to let my true colors show. A woman was dead, next door to me no less, the same day I moved in. The timing was terrible. I remained hopeful that Mrs. Stramtussle died of a heart attack and nothing more.

  “If you think of anything else, give me a call.” Deputy Cotton handed me her business card, complete with a fancy crest of the county sheriff’s department.

  Everything would be better once people got to know me—the new, fictional me. I would have to work on my people skills and my acting skills, or at least my lying skills.

  After the deputy left, I went to Allie’s room to check on her.

  “Why was that cop here?” Allie asked.

  “Apparently she’s a deputy, not a cop, and she had some questions about what I saw last night and wondered if I’d seen or heard anything.”

  “What did you see, Mom? You haven’t told me anything.”

  “I just saw something fake—it was like a show, a tour. It wasn’t real.”

  “That cop, she’s not going to take us away, is she? Did you break the rules already?” Allie flopped onto the bed, burying her head in a pillow.

  “Hey, no, it’s not like that. A lady died, and the cops are trying to figure out what happened. It doesn’t have anything to do with us.” I left out the part where Deputy Cotton mentioned that we might not be welcomed with open arms in Paradise given that we’d arrived unexpectedly, had no particular reason for being here, and our neighbor died the night we moved in. “But hey, just imagine what your room will be like once we fix it up.”

  “Yeah. It’s okay. It’ll never be as cool as what I used to have,” Allie said, flipping over on her bed to face me and wiping away a tear from the corner of her eye.

  “I promise we’ll do something to your room to make it much cooler. Maybe we can do some art projects.”

  “I thought Victor said no art,” Allie said as she started to shut down again.

  “Maybe Victor doesn’t need to know.”

  FOUR

  On Tuesday morning, Allie and I walked to school. She was back to her glum mood, dragging her feet at a snail’s pace. There had been only a few glimmers of her old self since we entered the WITSEC program. I dropped her off at the school gates, saying our goodbyes before she trudged off past groups of kids who seemed not to notice her. A pang of guilt hit me hard. I hoped Allie would make a new friend soon. I was sure it would help her feel better about our new normal.

  Armed with nothing more than a confident smile, I headed toward the center of town, determined to find a job. Any job.

  Up first, the dry cleaners. They had a closed sign on their door, and I guessed there weren’t too many people getting their clothes dry cleaned here. Paradise was more of a Laundromat kind of town. While I had initially thought working at the dry cleaners would suit me, now that I could smell the chemicals and burnt starch, I moved past this as an employment option.

  This was only the first stop on my mission to find employment. There would be more opportunities, I was certain. I had to keep a positive attitude if Allie and I were going to make it in Paradise.

  Business was definitely not booming in town, but the shop owners weren’t helping matters. On upper Stewart Street, I passed Jenna’s Jewelry and Gems—its window display looked pretty sparse with only a few handmade necklaces and rings. Next was Knitted Treasures—featuring cobwebby balls of yarn and a hand-lettered sign that read, Out to Lunch … For the Rest of the Day. Next on the street was Ceramics and Such—though they had some lovely things in the window, the window itself was grimy, not the most welcoming vibe to get from a shop.

  I could do so much to help them if I could only tell them who I really was. I’d had my paintings in several galleries all over the nation. I knew what worked and what didn’t when it came to creating a welcoming, customer-oriented gallery where people actually sold things, as opposed to items sitting idly in a window, gathering dust. Unfortunately, I wasn’t that person anymore. Who was I to tell any of the shop owners what would or would not work for them? Certainly not me, an unemployed stranger.

  Around noon, I stopped at Ferrell’s Feed and Tack. It was a long shot but nothing ventured, nothing gained. I talked with a burly man named Sam Ferrell, whose fashion statement was greased-back hair and a dusty gray cowboy hat. He wasn’t overenthusiastic about hiring me, but since he’d had no other candidates, he said he’d give me a chance. I was to be on the job Thursday at nine. That was perfect. I could walk Allie to school, and then follow Copper Canyon Road, which forked off of upper Stewart to Ferrell’s Feed.

  To celebrate, I stopped by Bette’s Place for lunch. Bette, as usual, was keeping her customers happy with efficient and cheerful service.

  “Well, well, well, look who the cat dragged in,” Bette said.

  “I don’t look that tired, do I?” I asked Bette with a laugh, as I scoped out my seating options. Not wanting to sit at a table by myself, I took a seat at the counter. Bette sidled up beside me.

  “You’re becoming a regular, just like everyone else in town. Coffee?”

  “Absolutely,” I replied.

  Bette set up a cup and poured some coffee into it. “What’s with the satisfied smile on your face?”

  “I found a job,” I said, breaking into a grin.

  “In this town? Yes, indeed, you are lucky! It seems there aren’t too many people looking to hire. There are several shops about to go out of business. They can’t hire anyone. Most of them don’t have much business sense. Who hired you?”

  “I’m starting work at Ferrell’s the day after tomorrow.”

  “Ah, well, I hope that works out for ya, sugar,” Bette said, patting my hand.

  That didn’t sound very encouraging, but perhaps I read her wrong. Bette slid the pitcher of cream and the ceramic dish of sugar packets to me, then rushed off to serve another customer. Without Bette’s chatter, I noticed how much quieter it was in the café today than it had been yesterday. Had everyone been talking about me before I’d made my entrance? Or was I imagining things? I pulled over a copy of the local newspaper from the spot at the counter next to me. The paper could at least occupy me until I could finish my coffee and get out of there. My jaw dropped when I saw the headline—“Foul Play Suspected in Local Real Estate Maven Greta Stramtussle’s Death.”