Grounds to Kill Read online

  “I ain’t really late,” he wiped his sweaty brow with the sleeve of his jacket and puffed up his cheeks indignantly. “I came by an hour ago but nobody answered the back door.”

  He stepped toward me and I stepped back. Dealing with Charlie meant keeping out of groping distance. He had a way of accidentally brushing up against a person and trying to cop a feel. It was like being mauled by a skeleton. Which was only fun once, at a Halloween party in the eighth grade.

  I didn’t try and question why he’d rung the bell and one of us didn’t answer, because in addition to being malnourished and grabby, Charlie was known for bending the truth.

  In case he was stating a fact, I advised, “Use your cell next time and call the Merlot business line if we don’t answer the buzzer. We’re a coffee shop, for God’s sake. It’s not like we’re closed in the morning!”

  The only saving grace was that Charlie’s muffins and various pastries were made for only a select few clients in Seattle in his own bakery, and were one of the best kept secrets in town. Mervin Lo himself had given me a hefty raise when I’d gotten Merlot’s bumped up the waiting list for the bakery’s goods.

  After signing the delivery invoice and sneaking a lemon scone for myself, I pushed Charlie back into the rain and slid the lock shut. I put half the box of goodies onto a tray and walked them out front where Mitch was holding court around the cash register with a bunch of doe-eyed yoga-clothes-wearing twenty-somethings.

  A glance outside showed Dad was gone. Relief settled in my stomach with the lemon scone. I hoped he was headed to one of my suggested shelters. But deep down I knew he wasn’t. A voice nagged that I should’ve just taken him home with me. But I’d been there, done that and had nothing to show for it but the hopelessness and broken dreams that come from dealing with the chronically mentally ill.

  The rest of my shift slinging coffee to over-caffeinated Seattleites ran fairly smoothly. I doodled away on the notepad next to the cash register until the itching eased up. Then, just when things got dull, a couple of Seattle PD’s finest arrived for coffee. There’s something about a man in uniform that always made my heart go pitter-patter. Deep down, I knew it made me feel secure and protected. Dad had been a cop back when his mind was clear. I remembered being scooped up in bear hugs, my face pressed against the stiff starch of his uniform. Good memories that now tasted sour.

  Lucky for me, I was in a committed relationship with my own member of the force. Tonight was our six month anniversary and Arthur was coming over for dinner. After I filled his belly with almost-homemade lasagna, I planned on broaching the delicate topic of moving forward in our relationship. I was positive we were ready for that next big step: a romantic weekend away together.

  “What’s with the big goofy smile?” Mitch asked.

  “Just looking forward to my evening, which starts...” I looked pointedly at my watch. “Right about now.”

  “Don’t tell me your night involves doing the tango of love with Arthur.” Mitch wrinkled his nose in distaste when he said Arthur’s name. “That guy is just—”

  “Stop.” I held up my hand in front of Mitch’s face. “It doesn’t matter what you think. He’s my boyfriend. I don’t go around commenting on the skanks that wander in here making goo goo eyes at you after you snuck out of their beds at the crack of dawn.”

  “Actually, you do comment on my love life all the time.” He took the dishtowel and whipped it at my ass as I turned to go. “The difference is I don’t go around falling in love with every police officer who asks me out on a date.”

  “You’re just jealous.”

  “Oh, right.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m secretly hoping to be swept off my feet by a man in uniform.”

  “No.” I giggled and tugged my Merlot’s apron over my head. “You just wish you were in a fabulous relationship like I am instead of schlepping from bed to bed.”

  I left Mitch laughing heartily at that.

  The ride home from Merlot’s was the usual crawl in traffic, but I managed to make good time in my Neon with a brief stop at Safeway to pick up my soon-to-be-homemade lasagna supplies, which consisted of frozen lasagna, shredded mozzarella cheese, garlic bread, a bagged salad and a bottle of red wine. Home for me was a fourth-floor apartment in a concrete slab of a building on Beacon and Hanford. I pulled into the parking lot in the back just as the drizzle notched up to a downpour. Luckily, I spotted an available parking spot right beside the back door. Unluckily, a zippy little Mazda darted into the spot ahead of my Dodge Neon.

  “Misty Nichols.” I hissed her name under my breath and curbed the urge to hit the accelerator when she hopped out of her car and offered me a saccharin smile.

  I snagged another spot a row away. My hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. I frowned at Misty swinging her hips as she walked toward the door. As the rain sloshed over her, it did nothing but make her look like she was modeling for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. She paused before entering the building to toss back her mane of golden hair and wave to me over her shoulder.

  “I hate that woman.”

  We’d had a friendship once upon a time, but too much had happened to rebuild all the bridges that were burned.

  I ran through the rain to the door of the building carrying my grocery bags. Once inside, I looked more like a drowned rat than a damp model, but I smiled anyway at the prospect of my date in a couple of hours.

  Greeting me at the door to my fourth floor apartment was my first true love, a Yorkshire terrier named Mojo. She had a glossy coat of steel blue with a tan face and feet. At seven pounds she was an impossibly adorable love muffin with the attitude of a diva. She ran to her toy basket and brought me a small stuffed bunny. I scooped them both into my arms and made baby cooing noises that would’ve been embarrassing if anyone else was around.

  Strangely enough I’d actually inherited Mojo from my arch nemesis, Misty Nichols. When Misty moved into the building, she owned Mojo but the two never saw eye-to-muzzle. Misty claimed Mojo was untrainable and at two still piddled in the apartment. I figured it was vindictive peeing, because even though Mojo was a female dog we both knew that Misty was the real bitch. When I saw the ad in the laundry room asking if anyone wanted to take Mojo off her hands, I scooped up the dog for myself.

  When I put her down on the floor, Mojo promptly ran to the patio doors at my balcony and nudged a string of bells. I trained her to ring the bells to indicate she needed to go out. Since I had no yard, Mojo used a two-by-four planter of grass I grew there specifically for her needs. While Mojo emptied her bladder, I pre-heated the oven. I absently rubbed my itchy palm on the box’s corner as I slid the frozen lasagna out and dumped it into my own pan. Then I heaped on extra cheese, sprinkled it with fresh basil leaves and covered it in foil. Ta da!

  Mojo and I went for a quick dash around the block while waiting for the oven to reach the correct temperature. Being that she was a pint-sized dog with low exercise requirements and I was an out-of-shape barista who breathed heavily after one city block, this was all either one of us could handle.

  After our jaunt Mojo ran to curl up in her crown-shaped doggie bed that had a pink shell with an ivory fleece cushion and Princess embroidered in white. I put the pan in the oven and went to transform from Coffee Girl to Wanton Sex Goddess.

  Arthur knocked at precisely eight-thirty. One of the things I liked about Arthur was that he was never late. Not ever. You might even say he was freakishly prompt.

  I flung open the door enthusiastically and smiled at my boyfriend. He claimed to be five-foot-ten, but I guessed him more accurately at five-nine. His light brown hair was regulation short and a smattering of freckles across his nose caused him to look closer to twenty than his actual thirty.

  “You’re still in uniform.” I grinned, wanting him to wrap me in those strong uniformed arms and make me feel secure.

 
; “Yup.” He stepped inside and kicked the door shut behind him. “I was going to go home and change but—” He hooked his fingers in the waistband of my jeans and pulled me into a kiss. “I know how you like it when I show up in my work duds.”

  It was a nice kiss that had the possibility of making me forget there was dinner in the oven.

  From her bed a few feet away Mojo growled low in her throat.

  “Hey, Rat,” Arthur called out.

  “Don’t call her that,” I protested with a pout.

  To show her disdain for Arthur, Mojo got up and circled in her bed until her rear was pointed at us.

  “Do I smell your world-famous lasagna?”

  I was pushed aside as Arthur followed his nose the few steps from my entranceway to my kitchen.

  “It’s almost ready,” I said.

  He grabbed a beer from the fridge and settled onto the couch with the remote in hand while I tossed the salad. The minute I was in the kitchen Mojo hustled over. I accidentally-on-purpose dropped a small piece of cheese meant for the salad and Mojo speedily vacuumed the morsel and headed back to her bed.

  In my romantic haze I envisioned the two of us eating dinner, sipping wine and gazing into each other’s eyes across a candlelit table. Unfortunately, Arthur preferred beer, I had no candles and no table, only a couple of bar stools at the counter, so we ate off our laps in front of the TV watching the King 5 news anchor tell us about all the evil in the world. None of this was conducive to getting Arthur to my laptop to look at romantic B&B websites. I waited until after we’d eaten our food and he’d had a second beer and then wrangled the remote from his hands and clicked off the television.

  Unfortunately, my turning off the TV made Arthur think I was offering dessert instead of conversation. Within two minutes of tongue wrestling on the sofa we continued our not talking in bed.

  Afterward I brought up the B & B idea.

  “Just you and me alone for an entire weekend,” I breathed against his ear. “Doesn’t that sound awesome?”

  Arthur picked up the remote for the bedroom television and clicked it on.

  “Sure. Sounds cool.” But his tone was less than enthusiastic. “You know what might be even cooler? Vegas.”

  “And more expensive.” And way less romantic.

  “I’ve got the bucks...no worries.” He reached over and lightly pinched my breast. “Just give me ten minutes or so to watch the end of this game and then we can talk about it, okay?”

  He turned up the volume before waiting for my reply. I didn’t feel as committed to watching the Blazers play ball with the Suns so I headed off for a post coital shower.

  While I was standing under the hot spray, my left palm began itching like crazy again. I shampooed, rinsed and waited on the conditioner to condition all the while trying to ignore the burning irritation in my hand. It got to be unbearable. It was like the palm of my hand had developed a yeast infection and then someone covered it with fire ants.

  Even though I knew from experience it wouldn’t do any good, I took my loofah and scrubbed it frantically across my palm. If anything, I was itchier than ever.

  “Argh! Fine. Have it your own way!” I screamed to my offending left hand as if it had a mind of its own.

  Sadly, in a weird way, it did.

  I rinsed off the conditioner before it even had a chance to deal with the split ends caused by blow drying, straightening and excessive dying. I jumped out of the shower, slipped my arms into the pink, fluffy robe Arthur had given me as a Christmas gift and walked over to the large, steamy bathroom mirror. Usually I would seek a pen and paper for itch relief. However, a lipstick, eyebrow pencil or, in this case, a steamy mirror worked in a pinch. With a deep breath I tried to seek a level of calm. I held my right hand over my heart and counted out a few beats before placing the index finger of my left hand up to the steamy mirror.

  With eyes closed and my breath held, my hand began to move of its own volition. Hurriedly, words were formed and a thought expressed. Not my words. Not my thoughts. I’m just the channel. The words came from my so-called spirit guide.

  In college a psychic told me my talent was called automatic writing. At the time I thought it had been brought on by a variety of illicit hallucinogenic drugs. I’m still not entirely sure it hadn’t. However the psychic insisted it happened when your soul was open to receiving instructions from a spirit guide. You entered a trance-like state and the guide controlled your hand to give you a message.

  It’s not nearly the party trick you might think. I was cursed with a spirit guide with a sick sense of humor, poor timing and a reluctance to feed me something helpful or useful like lottery numbers.

  When my hand stopped scrawling on the mirror, I let out the breath I’d been holding and felt a massive relief wash over me. My hand no longer itched and, in fact, I felt utterly at peace. Until I opened my eyes and read the profound message brought to me from the Great Beyond. “Dear Jen, Arthur is screwing Misty.”

  “What?” I jumped back in horror. “Uh-uh. No way!”

  “Hey, Jen, everything okay in there?” Arthur’s voice came from my bedroom across the hall.

  I couldn’t bring myself to reply. Taking huge gulps of air I began pacing in my tiny bathroom while I drilled my fingers through my wet hair. I tried to find calm, but succeeded only in getting more and more pissed off. The automatic writing thing started when I was in my early teens when the message I received was a doodle on my notebook that my date to the school dance was gay. Sadly for me, this turned out to be true. Over the years I’d received a lot of stupid, annoying and even ridiculous messages. But they were all...every single one...true.

  My last weighty message from the Great Beyond was “Don’t eat the shrimp,” while at a friend’s Christmas party. I ignored that and spent twenty-four hours clutching porcelain due to food poisoning. The fact of the matter was the guide, whoever or whatever it might be, did not lie.

  I glanced again in my bathroom mirror where the message was slowly fading with the steam. Splashing cold water on my face did little to cool the white-hot anger seething in my belly.

  “How could he?” I clenched my teeth, pounded my fist on the counter and felt tears burn my eyes.

  Letting out a string of colorful curses, I tightened the belt on my robe and stormed out of the bathroom and into the bedroom.

  “Blazers crushed ’em,” Arthur announced and clicked off the power to the TV before glancing my way. With a seductive smile he asked, “You ready for round two?” Pointing to a slight rise in the sheets, he added, “Bob here likes you smelling like soap and shampoo.”

  With determination I crossed the room to the bedside table on which Arthur had left his holster. I yanked out his Glock then turned and pointed it in the vicinity of his crotch.

  “I need to ask Bob a question.” My voice was impossibly calm.

  Arthur froze.

  “Whoa, Jen. Stop messing around, that thing’s loaded!” He chuckled nervously but when I didn’t return his stupid smile or lower the gun he got anxious and tried a firmer voice. “Seriously. Put it down.”

  “I’m asking Bob a question.” My voice was cool, but my blood was boiling. I took a step forward and stuffed the muzzle of the gun against his dick. “Tell the truth, Bob. Are you bobbing around inside Misty Nichols these days?”

  “Wha-a-a?” Arthur babbled and blinked furiously. He dug his heels into the mattress and scuttled up against the headboard. “Don’t be stupid! Where on earth would you get that idea?”

  He was trying for his manly, cop voice, but the words came out shrill. One look in his eyes and I saw nothing but the truth. Well, truth and fear because, after all, I was still pointing a gun at his penis.

  “Get out.” I tossed his gun onto the bed next to him and burst into tears. “Leave my key on the table on your way o
ut and lose my phone number. Permanently.”

  I couldn’t hold back big, ugly, gulping cries as I left the bedroom and headed to the living room. Mojo came running over and I picked her up and buried my head in her silky neck. Arthur dressed in record time and barely paused while he slipped his feet into his Nikes at my door.

  “Why Misty?” I sniffed from where I sat on the sofa. “You know I hate her! Besides, she only did it with you because you’re a cop and she’s got a thing for a man in uniform,” I added with a mean snarl.

  He turned toward me and his mouth formed a twisted smile.

  “Right. She’s a badge bunny. Just like you, Jen. It’s all about the uniform.”

  He tossed my apartment key in my general direction, and I watched it fall between the cushions as he stomped out of my apartment and out of my life.

  “Asshole,” I sniffed. Then the sniffs and snuffles turned back into full-blown blubbering. Mojo gave what little comfort she had by licking my teary face and offering me her stuffed ducky.

  After a half hour of sobbing I began frantically texting my girlfriends, Beth and Mallory, but I’d forgotten they were away at a retreat. Feeling sorry for myself, I went into the bathroom for tissue. My eyes were red and puffy and I looked like hell. I crawled into bed and remembered how my friend Mallory always said picturing a sunny meadow in the country helped her to relax. When I tried to visualize a peaceful meadow, all my mind could conjure up were pictures of Arthur and Misty naked and frolicking in that meadow. And I was hunting them with a loaded shotgun. It was probably too soon after my betrayal to expect to find inner peace.

  Instead I beat up my pillows pretending one was Arthur and the other Misty and hoped I’d eventually be so exhausted I’d fall asleep. No such luck. At midnight I was more awake than ever. Snagging my car keys, I decided to go for a drive to clear my head. I asked Mojo to come along but she had no interest in fueling my drama. I left the TV on for her so she wouldn’t feel lonely.