Smell My Feet
By Kim Hunt Harris
This Halloween at Belle Court Retirement Home, residents are on the lookout for blunt force drama.
Okay, this was bad. But I thought once all the information came out, it would be clear that I couldn’t possibly have been the one to murder Mr. Turkell.
Well, I supposed I could have. How much time does it take to bash an old man over the head with his own bookend? You’re in, bam!, you’re out in thirty seconds. Forty-five, tops.
But I didn’t bash him over the head. I was too busy being furious at him to think about killing him. This was a detail I should have left out of my police interview. Hindsight, you know.
Here’s how it all started. Belle Court Independent Living Center was having a Halloween festival, and my friend Viv was excited because it gave her a chance to wear her Cruella Deville costume.
You might think an 80-something year old woman would need to buy a Cruella Deville costume. But no, my BFF Viv was prepared. In fact, she considered that dress appropriate for daily wear. Normally, I let Viv be Viv, but I drew the line at going to Target with her in that thing. Because she didn’t just wear the black and white slinky spaghetti-strap dress, or just the dress with the black and white wig. No. She wore the dress, the wig, the Dalmatian-print stole, the red elbow-length gloves, and the red stilettos.
Because, why not? I guess?
We hit upon the ‘why not’ when she revealed that I, too, had a costume.
You guessed it. White pants and t-shirt covered in black spots. Black and white dog ears. A brown nose.
“Nope,” I said.
“Oh, come on. If you’d brought Stump I could carry her.”
“If I’d brought Stump I would spend the whole time trying to keep her out of the candy.” My beloved dog Stump might have stubby little legs, but she had lightning quick reflexes when it came to finding food that she could later return in the form of barf on my floor. “No, I’m, not wearing the costume. I’m putting my paw down.”
“Ha ha,” Viv said, distracted. “Do they still sell candy cigarettes?” She waved a long red cigarette holder. “I could buy some real cigarettes, I suppose.”
“Viv, you can’t carry that thing, even with a candy cigarette in it. This is family event. Smoking creates the wrong impression.”
“I’m going as a woman who kills Dalmatians and wears their skin. Am I really worried about the impression I’m giving?”
She had a point.
“Tell you what,” she said as she tried on her black and white wig in her hall mirror. “You wear the dog costume and I’ll leave the cigarette holder here.”
I sighed. “Okay.”
“You were just waiting to be persuaded, weren’t you?”
“Yep.” It wasn’t the most flattering costume, but it would be comfortable, and I liked taking part in the Belle Court festivities. They pulled out all the stops on their events. They bring the grandkids in and do face painting and bobbing for apples out in the courtyard, and let the kids trick or treat in the residences.
Of course, not all the residents love it. Some, sadly, aren’t able to join in. And some are just grumpy.
Mr. Turkell was the latter variety. Which was fine. I mean, Belle Court was his home, after all, and he had the right to leave his metaphorical porchlight off. The kids were supposed to go only to the doors with little laminated jack-o-lanterns clipped to the front. No jack-o-lantern, no trick or treat. Everyone knew that rule.
Bart Faust was not one for rules, though. His mom, Carla, worked in the Belle Court administrative office, and when she couldn’t get a babysitter, she brought Bart to work with her, where he was free to run amok and exercise his tweenage boredom on unsuspecting residents. The kid was a punk. A younger version of Mr. Turkell, actually. When I rounded the corner to his hall, Mr. Turkell had just barked something of the ‘get off my lawn’ variety at Bart, to which Bart replied, “Yeah, well, you really can smell my feet then, Grandpa.” And he yanked off his shoe and wagged it under Mr. Turkell’s nose.
I’m not saying that’s what killed the man. Just that it was a thing that happened. The police deemed it ‘irrelevant.’ They have hindsight issues of their own, clearly.
Prior to the “smell my feet, Grandpa” encounter, Viv and I had been down in the courtyard, in full costume, manning one of the carnival games — Fishing Adventures. We crouched on short stools behind a sheet that had been painted with waves and fishes, and kids stood on the other side with fishing poles equipped with clothes pins instead of hooks. They threw their line over and we clipped a cheap toy to the end and threw it back. Easy peasy, provided the kid was strong enough to get the clip to go over the sheet.
It was fun. I listened to the chatter on the other side of the sheet and considered what would be the best toy for this particular kid. The unicorn headband or the spider ring that squirted water? A glow in the dark sticky skeleton or a vampire rubber ducky?
Sometimes a kid got overzealous, and Viv or I got clonked in the head with the clothes pin, but that was merely a nuisance. Totally worth it to hear the squeals of delight or the “No way! Awesome!” when we connected the kid with the right toy.
“You know, I’m completely under-utilized here,” Viv complained as she clipped a pair of skeleton clapping hands onto the clothes pin and tossed it back over the sheet. “I should be out front. I’m a big draw.” She waved a hand down her black and white dress.
“The eye can’t help but be drawn to you,” I agreed.
“And I’m hidden behind this sheet. Me!” She sighed and patted her hip. “What time is it now? Shoot. I left my phone in my apartment. Go up and get it for me, would you?”
“We just have about ten more minutes here.” Carla was coordinating the event, and she was rotating people between activities, so they didn’t get bored.
“I’m bored,” Viv sighed. “You stay here, and I’ll get my phone.”
Something moved behind her, and I shifted on my stool to look. Maybe it was Carla, coming to relieve us early.
But no, it was Bart Faust. Coming to do mischief.
He tiptoed up to Viv, clothes pin in hand.
Viv registered the look on my face and swiveled to follow my gaze.
Bart clipped the clothes pin to Viv’s wig and shouted, “Okay, Kaden, pull!”
The pole jerked and Viv’s wig lifted. It was pinned to her hair with bobby pins, and it didn’t come easily. On the other side of the sheet, Kaden jerked a bit harder.
“Yeow!” Viv jumped to her feet, hands to her head.
Bart howled with laughter and ran.
The fishing pole jerked again, and bobby pins flew. As if sensing that the catch of the day was at hand, the kid on the other end gave one more mighty tug. The wig went airborne, accompanied by Viv’s shriek of outrage. She hustled on her red stilettos around one end of the sheet, and I moved out from the other side.
Poor Kaden. Poor, poor Kaden. Clearly, he had no idea what Bart had put him up to. He looked to be about six years old, and he stood holding the wig, shocked. His eyes grew wide as Viv stalked around the edge of the sheet.
Kaden took one look at her and burst into tears. He threw the wig at her and ran.
Viv started to go after him, but I stopped her. “It wasn’t him, Viv, it was Bart.”
“That little punk!” Viv said. “Where’s his – there she is!” She spotted Carla and headed in that direction, shoving the wig back on her head as she walked. “Carla Faust!” she roared. “We need to talk!”
In addition to coordinating the carnival, Carla was playing a fortune teller and card reader. She wore a bunch of colorful scarves draped over her skirt and a headscarf edged with little metal discs that jingled pleasantly when she moved. She watched with visible dread as Viv advanced on her. She didn’t need her crystal ball to know what was going on here.
“Ms. Kennedy,” Carla said. “Don’t you look amazing!”
But flattery wasn’t going to stop Viv. Wasn’t even going to slow her down. “That boy of yours is a menace! He just tried to rip the hair off my head!”
“Wig,” I clarified. Bart was a punk, but it wasn’t as if he’d tried to scalp Viv. “Tried to rip off her wig.”
Viv spun on me. “The wig that was clipped to my hair, Salem! He ripped out actual hairs!”
“I’m gonna go get your phone,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
This altercation clearly didn’t require my assistance. I threw Carla a sympathetic look and headed up to Viv’s apartment.
Inside Viv’s apartment, I grabbed her phone and spotted the Cruella Deville cigarette holder. I decided to take it with the phone. Letting Viv know she’d won an argument would help change her mood, if Carla had failed to appease her.
I was on my way back to the elevator when I encountered the scene with Bart at Mr. Turkell’s door.
“I said get out of here, you little creep!”
“Not until you give me some candy,” Bart said as he hopped around, tugging his shoe back on.
“How about instead I give you a boot up your – ”
“Heeeey,” I called, and hurried to them. Bart was the perfect age to repeat every profanity he heard. “Bart, remember the pumpkins that you’re supposed to look for? Mr. Turkell’s door doesn’t have a pumpkin.”
“It sure doesn’t, because I don’t want obnoxious little creeps hounding me for candy.”
“We’re sorry,” I said and put a hand on Bart’s shoulder. “He got a little confused. He’ll stick to only the doors with pumpkins. Right, Bart?”
“I’m not confused. And I’m not sorry. The geezer should have gave me some candy. Now I’ll come back, and I’ll be taking more than just candy. ” Bart edged away from my hand and backed down the hallway, grinning back at us. “And you look like a big ol’ cow, lady!”
I huffed in disbelief.
“Bart?” Mr. Turkell groused. “You’re that goofy secretary broad’s kid, aren’t you?”
“Goofy secretary broad?” I said, before I thought better of it. Mr. Turkell was probably going to complain about Bart, and this wasn’t the first complaint that had been lodged about the kid. “I’m not sure who his parents are, but we’ll get out of your hair now.”
“And you’re that crazy lady’s friend, right? The one who swans around here like she’s the Queen of Sheba? You’re the one with the forty-year-old car and that ugly dog. Do you really think I’m as dimwitted as that old hag?”
I saw red. I wasn’t thrilled that he’d called Viv dimwitted. But hearing him call my beloved Stump ugly had my blood boiling.
“Yeah!” Bart shouted from the other end of the hallway. “You’re fat and your dog is ugly!” He rounded the corner, and I heard the bell for the elevator ding.
Behind me, Mr. Turkell laughed. “Ugliest mutt I’ve ever seen. Needs to come with a trigger warning.”
“Hey!” I whirled on him and shoved my finger in his face. “My dog is a whole heckuva lot better looking than you! You miserable old – old crank!”
I stalked after Bart, Mr. Turkell’s laughter ringing in my ears. The elevator doors slid closed as I rounded the corner, Bart grinning as he left me there.
I hit the button to bring it back up, but it took too long, so I slammed open the door to the stairwell and stomped down the stairs. By the time I made it down two floors, sweat was pooling on my lower back and along my hairline. It was hot in the stairwell and the costume wasn’t helping. Since I still had two more floors to go, I decided to try the elevator again.
Unbelievable. Just as I reached to push the button, the elevator passed me on the way back up. I pushed the button and waited anyway, but I finally gave up and headed back for the stairs. When I reached the courtyard and found Viv, my face was hot and flushed.
She hadn’t managed to get her wig back on straight, and the slinky black and white dress was slipping down one bony shoulder. She hitched her Dalmatian print stole up on her shoulders but that didn’t change the general Cruella-on-a-three-day-bender impression she was giving off. “What happened to you?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. I handed her the phone and cigarette holder. “Just that old jerk Turkell.”
“Oh, he’s the worst,” Viv agreed. She flourished the empty cigarette holder happily.
“He called Stump ugly.”
“See,” Viv said. “Miserable and stupid. Come on, I convinced Carla to let me tell some fortunes this afternoon, but she disappeared before I could get the crystal ball.”
“Do you know anything about fortune telling?”
“Loads,” she said. She headed toward the fortune teller area, the wig bobbing as we walked. “I worked a psychic hotline in the early 90s.”
We had a hard time finding Carla, though. The place was a madhouse, then we got sidetracked by a dart game. Viv made quick work of three orange balloons in a pumpkin-shaped group, then three more. She pointed out prizes she planned to win and plunked more tickets on the counter. The little girl waiting in line behind her sighed and walked away.
“Viv, this is supposed to be for the kids,” the woman working the booth said. “Actual kids, not childish adults.”
“You’re just jealous,” Viv said as I took her elbow and led her away.
Carla came hurrying by a few minutes later, looking harried. “Oh, Ms. Kennedy, I’m so sorry! Here, let’s go into my office and I’ll get you that crystal ball.”
“Did you talk to Mr. Turkell?” I asked as we followed behind her.
She stumbled a half-step, then lifted her long skirt and shook her foot free of the hem. “Mr. Turkell? No, why?”
I felt bad then. If the grump hadn’t complained about Bart already, maybe he wouldn’t. I didn’t want to add to her obviously already high level of stress. “Oh, nothing. He was just upstairs complaining about…the noise,” I said lamely.
“Well, I know he’s having a hard time adjusting to life here,” she said. “He’ll come around, I’m sure.”
Viv scoffed. “Men like that don’t come around. They start out insufferable and work up to unbearable. I’ll bet he was always unhappy.”
In her office, Carla sat behind her desk and opened drawers. “Yes, okay…” She frowned and stared at the desktop. “Okay, now. Where was I?”
“You were going to give me the crystal ball so I could do the fortune telling,” Viv reminded her.
“Oh, yes!” Carla laughed and shook her head, setting the discs on her scarf to tinkling again. “Sorry, my mind is so frazzled!” She stood and pulled a set of keys from her drawer. “I put it in the closet to keep it safe. It’s not mine, it belongs to the community theatre. I didn’t want one of the kids to get too exuberant and knock it over.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll keep it safe,” Viv assured her.
“Well, if you broke it, you could afford to just…” She stopped, then swallowed, looking horrified at what she’d been about to say. “I mean, of course you wouldn’t be expected — it’s my responsibility.”
“Hey.” I stepped between them and took Viv’s elbow. “Don’t sweat it. Viv could afford to replace it.”
“I could afford an actual crystal ball instead of this overturned fishbowl thing, actually. I could probably afford one made of diamonds.” Viv does not suffer from false modesty. “Also, I need the scarves. And the skirt.”
Since Carla didn’t have a different skirt to wear, they compromised by transferring Carla’s head scarf over Viv’s Cruella wig and tied another scarf over her slinky dress.
Viv got situated and posed. “How do I look?”
“You look…” Carla blinked and stammered, apparently lost for words. “I’m sorry, I need to go find Bart, make sure he’s not getting into any trouble.” She hurried off.
Viv looked at me, brow raised.
I shook my head. “Words cannot describe.”
“Perfect. Let’s go.”
I busied myself with the kids waiting in line to get their fortunes read. I could hear Viv’s voice, dramatically rising and lowering as she predicted fame and fortune, or heartbreak and despair, for one kid after another. I’d become distracted, though, when I heard her protesting, “What? Oh, come on!” as a little girl ran away in tears.
The kids in line watched in silent horror. One boy cut his eyes toward the crystal ball and stepped backward out of line.
I smiled brightly at the waiting kids. “Madame needs a short break. We’ll get started again in just a few minutes.”
“What did you say to that poor girl?” I hissed at Viv.
“Salem, she shouldn’t ask the questions if she didn’t want to hear the answer.” She rubbed her hands together. “Who’s next?”
“Maybe we should revisit the goal of this event. It’s supposed to be fun, Viv.”
She drew her head back. “I’m having fun.”
The woman we’d met earlier at the dart throw stormed past the line of waiting kids. The red-eyed little girl stood behind her, chewing a thumbnail.
“What is your problem, Vivian Kennedy?”
Viv smiled serenely and spread her hands. “Cross my palm with silver, and we can talk.”
“My Kaitlyn told you she wanted to be a gymnast and you said she couldn’t because she inherited my wide hips!”
“I did not! I said it was too soon to tell if she was going to inherit your wide hips, but that she might want to give painting a try, just in case. It never hurts to have something to fall back on.”
Carla appeared behind the angry grandma, with Bart behind her. “What’s the matter? Everyone okay?”
It appeared that Angry Granny had opened the floodgates. Carla quickly became engulfed in a small crowd of parents, grandparents and kids protesting Viv’s predictions. Poor little Kaden sidled up, his hand in his Grandpa’s, to wait his turn to lodge a complaint.
Viv and I stood watching the commotion for a few minutes.
“Oh, come on,” Viv mumbled. “Can you honestly say your life never took a side trip down the Plan B path? Can any of you say that?” She looked at me. “Salem, don’t you think it’s good to have a backup plan?”
“I don’t think the concept of a backup plan is really what this is about, Viv.”
Viv was dug in, though. She asked everyone within earshot. “Did you have a backup plan? Did you?”
People at Belle Court were mostly used to Viv by now, though. As soon as she could get a word in edgewise to Carla, Viv elbowed in and said, “What about you, Carla? Has your life gone exactly like you thought it would when you were ten years old?”
Carla opened her mouth, then clopped it closed. Her mouth grimaced into a smile. She looked down at her son and then, to everyone’s horror, she burst into tears.
The group froze. Nobody knew quite what to say. Then Viv turned back to Mad Granny and said “See? Everyone needs a backup plan. Your granddaughter will thank me one day.”
“Come on,” I said to Carla. “Let’s go back to your office.”
“No,” Bart whined. “I don’t want to go back there. It’s boring in there.”
Carla sniffed and put her arm back around him. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s just take a break for a few min – ”
She broke off as a fresh commotion erupted near the elevator. A woman in nursing scrubs was directing a uniformed police officer toward the elevator. A murmur went through the crowd.
“What’s going on?” Viv pushed through the crowd, but she was too late to catch the elevator. She watched the readout above, and when it landed on her floor, she turned and gave me a wide-eyed look.
“Oh, no,” Carla breathed, beside me.
“What do you think it is?” I asked her.
“No idea,” she said. She sniffed again and wiped at her eyes. “I have absolutely no idea. But…all this. And now the police are here? It can’t be good.”
Poor woman. She was stressed to the max.
“Well, let’s go back to your office for a few minutes, anyway. You can use a break. I can use a break.” My dog ears were kind of giving me a headache.
Bart grumbled as Carla led us back to her office. She hugged him to her, then reached down and cupped his chin. “I need you to – what’s that?” She grabbed a tissue out of the box on her desk, licked it, then scrubbed at something on his cheek.
“Mom! Stop it!”
He ducked away and she tossed the tissue in the wastebasket, then sighed and unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk. She handed him a tablet. “Just for a little while.”
“Awesome!” he cried. He ran into the outer office, dropped into a chair, swiped on the tablet and almost immediately, pew-pew sounds emanated from the device.
Carla watched him for a moment, through the window between the two rooms. “I know it’s bad to let him play those violent games. I don’t usually, but…” She sighed again.
“Hey, no judgment here,” I said. I was still thinking about whatever had been happening on Viv’s floor that required the police. If there had been a crime, Carla’s day was about to become even more stressful.
“Do you want me to call Bart’s dad, or some other family member to come pick him up?”
She shook her head. “His dad’s not in the picture, hasn’t been since right after he was born. And I don’t have any other family.” She chewed her lip and stared at the top of her desk, her usually animated face gone slack. “I mean, I have family in town, but they abandoned me even before Bart’s father did.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said.
I considered telling her that I had my own dysfunctional family, but she appeared lost in her own thoughts. “Mom said I’d live to regret it, getting mixed up with the school bad boy. I didn’t take you to a thousand dance, voice, and acting lessons just to see you throw it all on some loser the moment you turned 18.” She mimicked. “I told her I was pregnant, she said ‘I told you so,’ and that was the last time she spoke to me.”
She flinched and looked toward the outer office, where Bart was enthusiastically causing all manner of cyber bloodshed. “Not that I regret it, of course. Not one day. It’s just that…being a single parent is hard.”
I put my hand on top of hers. “I’m sure it is.”
She a drew a deep, ancient sigh and stared at the floor. “Maybe.” She looked past me, then her eyes widened.
I turned to look over my shoulder. Detective Bobby Sloan was making his way toward us.
Bobby and I had known each other since I was in fourth grade and he was a junior in high school. We weren’t friends, exactly. I’d had a massive crush on him and followed him all over our tiny little town, making moon eyes and writing very bad poetry about his beautiful eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I pretty much get called in for all the murders, Salem. I thought we were clear on that.” He nodded toward my dog ears. “You know, not many people could make that work.”
“There was a murder?”
He nodded. “Looks like it.”
Carla jumped to her feet. “No! Who?”
Viv jumped up behind Bobby, tottering on her heels. “It’s Turkell! He’s been bumped off!”
Carla gasped, then collapsed into her chair, stunned.
“Wow,” I said. “I was just talking to him.
Bobby studied me for a second. “Yeah, Madame Whatsits over here told me that. Said you had words with him right before he died.”
I gaped. “Viv!”
“Well, you did,” she said. She tugged at the scarf Carla had given her.
“Yeah, he said her dog was ugly,” Bart called from his seat in the next room. “And he called you fat.”
“No, you called me fat. Turkell just said my dog was ugly.”
“So, you did have words with him,” Bobby said. “What time was this?”
“I don’t remember,” I said. “But he was alive when I left him.”
“Can anyone else attest to that?” Viv asked. “I mean, I know how defensive you can get about Stump.”
“Viv!” I protested. “He also called you a dimwitted old hag.”
She frowned and tugged again at the scarf. “I’m glad someone bashed him over the head with that bookend thingy.”
Bobby pointed at her. “You. Close your mouth before I arrest you for tampering with a crime scene.”
“I didn’t tamper with one thing. I just looked at it.”
“That’s enough.” He pointed at me. “And you. Come with me.”
I glared at Viv before hurrying after him. “Where are we going?”
He didn’t answer. He just took me into an empty office and asked me a bunch of questions about my conversation with Mr. Turkell.
“Bobby, you know I didn’t kill the man,” I said.
“I don’t know who killed him. But somebody did, and as far as I know, you were the last to see him alive.”
“All that means is you don’t have all the information.”
“Then give me more to go on. Did anyone else witness the conversation?”
“Just Bart Faust. You heard him. He was there for most of it.”
“Most of it?”
“Not the last part.”
“And what was the last part?”
“You know, I don’t care for your tone.”
“What was the last part, Salem?”
I wracked my brain. “I don’t remember. I was too mad to remember.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I was mad enough to stomp down the hallway and take the stairs all the way to the first floor. I wasn’t mad enough to stomp the man’s head in.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Or, however he died,” I said lamely. “Did I tell you the part where Bart Faust brandished a shoe at him? Told him to smell his feet?” I remembered then that I’d been about to take the elevator and it had passed me on the way back up. That could have been anybody.
But it could have been Bart Faust, who had said I looked like a cow.
I decided not to mention this to Bobby, though; throwing a kid under the bus just because I was uncomfortable felt like a bad life choice.
Bobby sighed and crossed his arms. He glared at me for a minute. Then he nodded toward the door. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said.
Viv was not in Carla’s office, but I found her in the dining room. The festival had wound down and Belle Court employees were dismantling the games. The original plan had been for it to go on a few more hours, but it was unseemly to be playing musical chairs downstairs while a murder investigation took place upstairs.
I stuck my tongue out at Viv when I saw her, but she ignored that. She was already onto other things. “Get this. I told Jennifer my theory about old grumps just being older young grumps, but she said Mr. Turkell used to be really nice.”
“He did,” Jennifer confirmed. Jennifer was one of the managers in nutrition services at Belle Court “I took his drama class my senior year. It was a tough class to get into, but he was so supportive and encouraging. Everyone wanted to take Mr. Turkell’s class – it was super fun. I heard after his wife and daughter died, he became very unhappy and really changed. But yeah, Mr. Turkell was such a nice guy when I took his class.”
A man in yellow scrubs was passing as she said this, and he stopped in mid-stride. “Not our Mr. Turkell,” he said.
Jennifer nodded. “Yep. Our Mr. Turkell.”
The young man laughed. “I don’t believe it. Must be his evil twin we got here.”
“Believe it. A broken heart can make you bitter if you let it.”
“Well,” Viv said with a jingly nod of her head. “That man let it. He sure did.”
I had a hard time imagining grumpy old Mr. Turkell ever being a decent human being, much less “super fun.” The man had called Stump ugly. That was some deep, deep-seated nastiness.
“In fact…” Jennifer laughed and put her hand to the top of her head, thinking. “I might have a picture. I’ll be right back.”
She hurried off.
Viv snorted. “She’s got a picture of Turkell being super-fun? Bet it’s Photoshopped.”
Jennifer came back carrying not a photo, but a book. “My senior yearbook!” she cried triumphantly.
“You keep your high school yearbook in your office?” I blurted before I realized how judgmental that sounded. “I mean, what a great idea.”
“I don’t normally,” Jennifer said. “But a couple of weeks ago we had Nostalgia Days, and everyone brought stuff from high school. It was fun, wasn’t it, Ms. Kennedy?” She flipped through pages, looking for something.
Viv silently rolled her eyes at me. Viv had originally been all excited about Nostalgia Days, because she had the best high school story to tell: she’d dropped out of school, run away to New York City, and landed a job as a Rockette. She had lost her costume somewhere in the 60 years and five husbands that followed, but she ordered a replica from a costume supplier and began practicing her high kicks in her living room.
But then, not only had her costume and demonstration been vetoed by the event board (only actual high school nostalgia was allowed, and dropping out didn’t qualify), but Carl and Sue Hardaway had come dressed in their high school football and cheerleading uniforms, which Viv had described as, “Just sad, really.”
“Here it is. See?” Jennifer flipped the yearbook around for us to see. There, in black and white, was a series of pictures from the Lubbock High School theater department. The production was Grease, and Mr. Turkell stood grinning amidst a group of high school kids wearing leather jackets and poodle skirts.
“Wow,” I said. “That does not look Photoshopped.”
“That’s me.” Jennifer pointed to blur of a girl in the crowd. “I played Rizzo.” She threw her head back and sang the emotional end of Rizzo’s big number, “But to cry in front of you…that’s the worst thing I could do.” She chuckled and shook her head. “Those were the good ol’ days, am I right?”
Carla reentered the area with Bart. “Sweetie, just sit here and play your game, and we’ll go home in a little bit.”
Bart grumbled but collapsed into one of the dining chairs, turning sideways and throwing his legs over the arm. He jabbed at the screen as the pew-pew sounds resumed on his game.
“Carla, how about you?” Jennifer asked. “You’re into community theater – were you in high school theater, too?”
Carla gave a strained laugh and glanced back at her son. “Oh, gosh. I wasn’t very into performing until a couple of years ago.”
“I was trying to tell them about Mr. Turkell’s happier years,” Jennifer said, holding up the yearbook. “I guess this was probably just a year or two before his wife and daughter died in that car accident.”
Carla froze, then cocked her head. “What in the world? Why do you have that?”
“I brought it up here for Nostalgia Days and just keep forgetting to take it home.”
“Well, here, give it to me. I’ll put it in your locker, so you won’t forget it. You don’t want to lose this! Will you go up to the fifth floor and see if you can help them with Mr. Malone? He’s refusing to eat again, and you always have such a way with him.”
Jennifer handed the yearbook over to Carla and rolled her eyes. “That man is spoilt rotten. I’ll bring a bottle of my special sauce. He’ll eat anything with my special sauce on it.” She leaned in and stage-whispered to me and Viv, “It’s just ketchup and Worcestershire sauce with a bit of garlic salt. Don’t tell nobody. And don’t tell the nurses I’m giving him salt.”
Something that Carla said had caught my attention, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Then I remembered what she’d said about her mother.
“I didn’t take you to a thousand dance, voice, and acting classes just to watch you blow it all on some loser the moment you turned 18.”
A thousand classes sounded like a lot for someone who wasn’t really into performing until a couple of years ago.
Why would she lie about something like that?
I shifted so I could watch her walk toward the employee breakroom. But when she got to that end of the hallway, she stopped in the breakroom doorway, then turned and went the other direction, toward her office.
“That’s weird,” I said to Viv.
“No kidding,” Viv said. “Ketchup and garlic salt? Nasty.” She toyed with her scarf and looked idly around. “I’m bored down here. Let’s go upstairs and see if we can find out anything about Turkell.”
“I was under the impression you had already been there.”
Viv shrugged. “I tried. I pretended to be confused and wandered into his apartment, but I didn’t get past the front door.”
“Did you see anything?”
“Just his feet. The rest of his body was behind the sofa.”
“What was it about the bookend?”
“I overheard that part. One of the cops said, ‘Well, what’s this mask thing, then?’ and the other said, ‘It’s a bookend. See, there’s another one like it on the other side’ and he pointed toward the bookcase. And that’s when your boyfriend came in.”
“Bobby’s not my boyfriend,” I said. I chewed my lip and thought. Viv was taking a stab in the dark about the bookend being the murder weapon, but from Bobby’s reaction, it sounded like a decent guess.
As we were walking out the door, I turned back to Bart. “Hey Bart, did you tell your mom about the argument you had with Mr. Turkell?”
“Argument?” he sneered, still focused on the screen, thumbs working furiously. “I told her he called you a dimwitted old bat with a ugly dog,” he said. “I didn’t say nothing about no argument.”
On the elevator, I turned to Viv. “Did you see Carla take that yearbook?”
“Umm, I was right there, Salem.”
“She didn’t put it in the breakroom with Jennifer’s locker. She went toward the breakroom, but then she turned left, to her office.”
“Salem, why would she want to steal somebody’s old high school yearbook?”
“I don’t know! It’s weird, right?” I chewed my lip. What could possibly be in the yearbook that she’d want to keep hidden?
The elevator door opened at Viv’s floor and Bobby stood right there. He shook his head. “Nope. Nuh-uh. You’re not getting off here.”
“You cannot stop me from going to my own apartment,” Viv said as she pushed past him.
I shrugged as I ducked past him and followed Viv. “We’ll go straight to her apartment and stay there,” I promised.
“I will be keeping an eye on you. And Salem?” He gave me a look, and while I knew he didn’t believe I’d killed Mr. Turkell, he clearly was concerned about something. “Do me a favor and don’t threaten to kill anyone else, okay? It makes things awkward for me when they turn up dead.”
He headed back around the corner toward Mr. Turkell’s room, and I joined Viv at her apartment. As soon as she went through her front door, she ripped off the Cruella wig and tossed the red gloves onto her coffee table. She scrubbed at her hair, sending bobby pins flying. “That thing is hot,” she said as silver hair sprang in tufts from her head.
“Do you still have your membership to that yearbook website?” I asked. When Viv decided that she and I were going to be private investigators, she signed up for all kinds of things, a website that hosted thousands of school yearbooks online being one of them.
Viv scrubbed her hair some more and pointed to her Mac Book on the dining room table. “You’re still on about that yearbook?” she asked, but she didn’t stop me from booting up the laptop. She kicked off the stilettoes and stretched full length on the sofa, talking mostly to herself about how impossible she found it that Mr. Turkell had ever been considered a nice guy.
I let her ramble as I logged onto the website and searched the school and year that Jennifer had been showing us. I was off at first, but I finally found the right one. Jennifer smiled back from her senior picture. I scrolled through the pages and found Carla’s class picture from ninth grade.
Carla Faust, the same name she went by now. Her name was followed by a string of other numbers, and I noticed, finally, that a lot of names had other numbers beside them, separated by commas.
What did that mean? I scrolled through and tried to make sense of them. She was in 9th grade, but these numbers were a lot higher than that. 34. 78. 167. 172.
The kid under her had only one extra number: 18.
The kid under that had only a name, no numbers. The kid under that had three numbers: 18, 73, 92.
It couldn’t be grades, and class rank made no sense.
“Oh!” I finally said, feeling foolish. “Page numbers?” I scrolled to page 34, and sure enough, there was a young Carla, dancing in a chorus line. I scrolled back to her class photo and grabbed a pen and pad off of Viv’s bar. She was still droning on about Mr. Turkell. I jotted down 78, 167, 172.
On page 78, Carla was included in three pictures – film club, French club, and glee club. On page 167, she was grouped among a big crowd of junior pom-pom girls. On page 172, she was among the minor cast members in that same page Jennifer had shown us – Mr. Turkell’s theater class.
I sat back in my chair. Had she been one of his students? Why hadn’t she mentioned that?
I chewed my lip. If I remembered correctly, Jennifer had asked her point blank if she’d been in Mr. Turkell’s class and she’d denied it. Why?
I pondered that as I kept scrolling, lost in thought as the pages of pictures became pages of dialogue boxes of various sizes, filled with different ‘handwriting’ fonts – messages from students to each other, to teachers, to parents. They’d probably charged a few bucks to write a personal message to someone. “To our bright and shining star Kayleigh, from her proud mom and dad,” or “Thanks for all the great memories on the kickline, I’ll miss you guys,” kind of thing. I read through the messages, only half paying attention, until I saw Carla’s name.
“To Carla Faust, don’t forget us when you get famous on Broadway,” from Mrs. Turner.
I flipped back the pages. Mrs. Turner, the choir director and Glee Club sponsor.
“You’re not listening to me,” Viv groused as she pushed herself up. “We need to think of a way to get into Turkell’s room so we can see what’s going on. Nadine Wimberly is in the suite next to his. “Oh!” She jumped, then darted from the room. I heard rustling around, then she came back carrying something that looked like a 1950s radar gun, with an inverted bowl partway down the barrel.
“What is that?”
She pointed it toward me, and I jumped up, pushing it away.
“It’s not a gun, it’s a listening device.”
“Are you sure? Is it going to shoot me full of gamma rays or something?”
“I just said, it’s a listening device. I’m going to put it up against the wall in Nadine’s suite and listen to what that detective boyfriend of yours is up to.” She wagged the gun around, studying the trigger area.
“Bobby’s not my boyfriend,” I repeated by rote. I moved to stand behind her. I figured that was the safest place to be, although I couldn’t rule out her shooting us both full of gamma rays.
“See?” she said, turning the thing sideways to show me. “You put this against the wall. It’s got Blue Teeth.”
“Bluetooth,” I corrected. “Wait.” I touched her neck. “What is this? Are you bleeding?”
She craned her head back and tried to look at her own neck. “Where? Am I bleeding?” She ran to the hall mirror and set the radar gun on the shelf nearby. I flipped on the hallway light and we both studied the streak of red that ran from behind her ear, down her neck.
“I’ll bet one of those bobby pins poked you,” I said as I felt through hair, looking for a source of the bleeding.
“Or that punk Bart ripped enough hairs out that it caused a slight hemorrhage,” she said.
The thing was, though, that we couldn’t find any kind of injury that would have caused it. It wasn’t as if the blood had dripped down her neck. It was more like a smear.
I thought of something. “Do you think it was on that scarf that Carla gave you?”
She looked at me, bug-eyed. “Salem. Do you think?”
My heart thudded. “I don’t know. But…she’s acting weird. She’s all in that yearbook, Film Club, Glee Club, Theater. She would definitely have known Mr. Turkell. Jennifer said his class was hard to get into, but that seemed like the thing she would have at least tried for.”
“But what motive would she have to kill him?”
I shrugged. “He was going to complain about Bart. Maybe get her fired. It sounded like she was already having money trouble.”
“I heard they were about to ask her not to bring him back up here,” Viv said. “They just let her today because of the Halloween thing.”
“Is that enough motive for murder, though?” I fiddled with my puppy dog ears. “Maybe we should tell Bobby.”
“Tell Bobby what? That she was his student? The man had hundreds of students. Maybe thousands. That’s nothing.”
“You’re right.” I chewed my lip, remembering what Bobby had said as we’d parted in the hallway. “Don’t threaten to kill anyone else.” I had not threatened to kill Mr. Turkell. I hadn’t threatened to kill anyone. Why would he say that?
Had Carla told him I’d said that?
If she had, it might have been because Bart told her that. She hadn’t been there when we were having our little altercation at Mr. Turkell’s front door, so she wouldn’t have been able to say she’d heard me say it. Had Bart lied and told her I’d said that?
Or did she make it up, to throw the scent off someone else?
You should have gave me the candy. Now I’ll come back…
“We need to get that scarf back from Carla and give it to Bobby,” I said. “He can analyze it and see if it has Mr. Turkell’s blood on it.”
“Good thinking! Except we’ll take it to a lab and analyze it ourselves! He wants to hog all the glory for himself. ” She grabbed her wig off the coffee table and began stuffing her hair back under it. She stood again before the mirror and tugged the thing straight — it was looking pretty ratty, but I supposed it still fit the aesthetic. She grabbed her gloves, cigarette holder, and ray gun on the way out the door.
“We’re going to give the scarf to Bobby,” I said as we hurried back toward the elevator. “If we keep it, that will be obstruction of justice.”
Viv pouted and crossed her arms over her chest. “Dang. You’re right.”
We ran into Carla and Bart as we neared the staff area. Carla had her purse over her shoulder and a tote bag in one hand, leading Bart, engrossed in the game on her tablet, with the other.
“Oh, I’m glad we caught you!” Viv said as we approached her. “Can I borrow that scarf again? I need it for tonight.”
Carla shot a flat-lipped look toward the door, and I could practically hear her thinking, ‘We almost made it,’ but she took a deep breath, then said, “Of course. It’s back in my office.” She headed that way, steering Bart by the shoulder.
He gave an exasperated sigh but trudged along, focused on his game.
Carla unlocked her office and set her tote bag down to pick up the scarf and hand it to Viv.
I looked down at the bag. Jennifer’s yearbook was in there. I could see it.
I decided maybe it was time to catch Carla off guard and see what would happen.
“Why did you take Jennifer’s yearbook?” I asked.
Carla jerked like I’d stung her. “Oh, my gosh! Thank you for reminding me, Salem. I was going to put that in Jennifer’s locker on my way out and I forgot. It’s been such a scatterbrained kind of day.” She laughed.
I had to hand it to her, she was a good actress. The laugh sounded almost genuine.
“Why did you tell the police I had threatened to kill Mr. Turkell?”
She blinked. “Salem, I have to tell the truth. It’s a murder investigation.”
“But that’s not the truth,” I said. “I never threatened him.”
“Look, I’m sure they understand it was just one of those things people say but don’t mean.”
“But I didn’t say it,” I insisted. “You didn’t hear me say it because I didn’t say it.”
“No, I didn’t hear you say it. I heard my son tell me about your argument, and I relayed what I knew because that’s my responsibility.” She looked down. “As a parent. As a citizen. To tell the truth.”
I looked at Bart. “Bart, did you tell your mother I threatened to kill Mr. Turkell?”
“I told you, Dog-Face Cow Lady. I told her that he called her a dimwit and said your dog was ugly.”
“Bart, please,” his mother chided.
“And nothing else?” I asked him.
“Mooo,” he said, still focused on the game.
I looked at Carla. “Why did you lie about being in Mr. Turkell’s drama class?”
The laugh might have been faked, but the glint of anger in her eye was 100 percent genuine. “I didn’t lie. I wasn’t in Mr. Turkell’s class.”
“I looked at the yearbook online. You were in theater, in glee club, in all kinds of show business type classes.”
“I wasn’t in Mr. Turkell’s class,” she said through gritted teeth. “I didn’t get accepted into that class. He said – ” She broke off, clenched her jaw, looked at Bart who had slumped in her office chair and was kicking the desk absently while he killed various things on his screen. “Anyway, I didn’t lie, and I wasn’t in his class.”
“It seems weird that you wouldn’t mention that you’d at least gone to the same school where he taught,” Viv said. She pointed the cigarette holder at Carla. “You have to admit that.”
“I don’t have to admit anything!” Carla shot back. “That man ruined…” She took a deep breath and smoothed her skirt, then reached out and stroked Bart’s hair. “It was a very difficult time in my life, and I prefer not to dwell on it. I’ve moved on. Now, if you don’t mind, we have – ”
“He discouraged you,” I guessed. “He was in the throes of grief after his wife and daughter died, and he was miserable and hateful, and he stomped all over your ambition of becoming an actress on Broadway. So, you turned to the wrong person for comfort – ”
Carla shot a look toward her son, then back at me. The fury blazed in her eyes.
I gave her a gentle shake of my head. I would not reveal what I suspected about that part. “And you’ve since built yourself a somewhat steady life. Then he comes in and threatens to upend it again. That’s ironic.”
Carla scoffs. “Oh, life does love a bit of dramatic irony. Imagine, the horrible old man being killed by his own Thalia mask. But I hate to break it to you. Mr. Turkell was no more than a blip from a long time ago. I was nowhere near him when he was killed. You saw me. I was running off my feet trying to keep this event on track. I have a hundred witnesses.”
She picked up her tote bag again and tapped Bart on the arm. “Let’s go, sweetie.”
She swept past us, making Bart trot to keep up.
Viv and I exchanged a look.
“What’s a Thalia?” Viv called as she trotted after them on her stilettos.
“It’s the comedy mask. You said he was killed with it. You said it was lying on the floor with blood on it.” She was walking faster now, her hand clutching at the shoulder of Bart’s shirt, hurrying him along.
Viv looked at me and shook her head. “Call your boyfriend,” she whispered. “I never said it was the comedy mask,” she called after Carla.
Carla and Bart were out the main doors of Belle Court by now, moving down the sidewalk toward the employee parking lot. Viv trotted after them on her red heels. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called Bobby, hurrying to catch up to Viv.
Viv reached out for Carla, took her by the shoulder, and tugged at her. “I never said it was the comedy mask,” she said again. “I just said there was a bookend on the floor.”
Carla stopped, her mouth a thin line. She glared at Viv, threw a look toward Bart, then took another deep, fortifying breath. “I have been in Mr. Turkell’s apartment before. I know what he has there. I made the connection in my subconscious.” She took her keys out of her handbag. “Now, if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind.” She held up the fortune teller scarf. “There was blood on this, and I think it is Mr. Turkell’s. You need – ”
Carla snatched the scarf out of Viv’s hand and said, “Bart! Run!”
She grabbed Bart’s hand and sprinted toward the parking lot.
Bart threw a confused look over his shoulder, then hurried before his mother dragged him off his feet.
In that moment, I knew Carla wasn’t covering for Bart. If he’d been the one to hit Mr. Turkell over the head, he wouldn’t be confused as to why they needed to run.
Viv brandished the ray gun and shouted, “Don’t make me use this!”
Bart ducked and stumbled enough to slow them down. Viv caught up and snatched at the scarf that trailed behind Carla.
Carla spun and shoved an elbow into Viv’s stomach.
Viv grunted and collapsed to the sidewalk.
“Hey!’ I screamed. “You idiot!”
I ran after them and did a flying tackle.
I came up short. I managed to grab hold of Carla’s hips before I hit the sidewalk with a thud. Air whooshed from my lungs, and I gasped like a carp.
From the corner of my eye, I could make out Viv stumbling, one shoe on and one off, after Carla. I groaned and rolled onto the grass.
Viv grabbed the back of Carla’s jacket and jerked her back. Carla stumbled but managed to keep her feet. Viv kept one hand on the jacket and fumbled with the ray gun and the scarf with the other.
I shoved myself to my feet, pushed the dog ears back onto the back of my head, and stumbled after her. I grabbed Carla’s wrist. “You’re not leaving until Bobby Sloan sees this scarf and – ”
She pulled away from me, then suddenly lunged toward me. I was thrown off balance again and lurched onto the grass.
“Hey!” Viv said. She was trying to wrap Carla’s wrists together with the scarf, but the ray gun kept getting in the way.
“Be careful with that!” I shouted to Viv. “We have to preserve the evidence.”
Viv had one of Carla’s wrists and I grabbed at the other again for all I was worth. Together, we could bring her down.
Bart jumped into the middle of my back with a banshee scream.
The kid was heavy! He gripped his knees into my waist and threw one arm around my neck, choking me.
“Get off me!” I wheezed. I clawed at his arms and shoved at his thighs, trying to break their grip. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I had to get him off my back.
The weight of him had me stumbling again, and I went onto my knees on the grass.
I’ll flop onto my back, I thought. That will dislodge him.
Then, the little monster bit me in the middle of my back.
I threw my head back and screamed.
I think my scream scared Bart. He scrambled off me and crab-walked backward away from me, wide-eyed.
“Salem, help me!”
I looked up to see Viv straddling Carla’s back, fighting to get the scarf wrapped around the woman’s wrists.
I pushed myself to my feet once again and heard a small commotion behind me. I looked up to see several significant things at once:
- Bobby Sloan and one of the uniform cops running to the rescue.
- A small crowd watching us.
- Several in the crowd with their phones out, recording us.
“Jackals!” I shouted as I wobbled out of Bobby’s way.
Bobby took Viv under the armpits and lifted her, screeching, off Carla.
“He’s a good boy!” Carla was saying, over and over, as the uniform cop handcuffed her.
Bart watched, clearly terrified, and I felt so bad for him I forgave him the bite on my back that still really hurt. I stood with him and put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s true,” I said. “You’re a good boy. You fought for your mom, that’s for sure. Do you have some family we can call?”
That night, I sat on the sofa in my trailer in Trailertopia, an ice pack against the bite on my back, my sweet doggie Stump on my lap. I stroked her ears while Viv scrolled through videos on YouTube. We’d gone viral before we even finished our interview with the Lubbock PD.
I leaned forward for a better view but gasped as the ice pack slipped down my back. I fished it out and leaned back against the sofa to hold it in place.
“Check this out, we even made Hughie Punk’s show.”
“Hughie Punk?” I asked.
“He’s a famous YouTube commentator.”
Hughie commentated as Cruella Deville and an overweight Dalmatian tried to tackle a woman in a flowy skirt. He provided sound effects and comments like, “ooh, that had to hurt” and “watch out for geriatric Cruella!” When Bart bit my back and I threw my head back and screamed, he put it in slow motion replay six or seven times and added what sounded like a bear growling.
Stump watched the screen, then looked up at me, brow furrowed. “It’s okay,” I told her. I stroked her ears some more. “Mommy’s okay.”
That reminded me of poor Bart, though. He said he had an aunt who he stayed with sometimes. The kid clearly had some issues with authority already, and this wasn’t going to do him any favors.
I called Bobby. “I’m worried about Bart Faust,” I told him.
“You should be. Things are not looking good for him.” He groaned and I pictured him on the other end of the line, rubbing his face, slumped in his chair. “CPS has connected with his father and grandmother, so hopefully somebody will be looking out for him.”
“Hopefully,” I said. “But isn’t there something more…”
He sighed again. “Well, he’s too young for Explorer Post.” Explorer Post was the PD’s youth community outreach program. “But we have a lot of Big Brother volunteers on the force. I can look into arranging something like that for him, if he’s interested.”
“I knew there was a reason I had a crush on you when I was a kid,” I said.
“What do you mean, had?”
“Had,” I repeated as I hung up. “But you’re still a decent Plan B.”
Kim Hunt Harris is USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Trailer Park Princess cozy mystery comedy series.
Kim loves to not only make her readers laugh and entertain them with a good mystery, but also to examine the issues the everyday people face…well, every day. Issues like faith and forgiveness, perseverance and tolerance. Set in Lubbock, Texas, the fun books feature a cast of quirky characters, outrageous situations, a drama queen of a dog, and from time to time, a tear or two.
