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“You mind if we stop at the drugstore on our way home?” Calvin asked. “They’re going to close soon, and I have to pick up a few prescriptions.”
“Yeah, sure. We’ve got to kill some time anyway before the strip bar opens.”
Calvin made a choking sound. “What?”
Gertrude looked at him. “Did you swallow a bone?”
“What?”
“Well, what else could be our next move?”
“We don’t have a next move. We are not the police. I’m going to get my medications, go home, and have a TV dinner while watching Bonanza.”
“How are you going to relax when there’s a killer on the loose?”
“Gertrude, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but this is not our job.”
“I don’t care!” Gertrude snapped. “You have to take me to the strip club before someone else gets hurt! If you don’t take me, I will go by myself, and there will be nobody to protect me.”
Calvin rolled his eyes. “I’m seventy-one years old, Gertrude. I’m not going to be much protection, and I’ve worked hard to maintain my perfect reputation all these years. I’m not going to blow it now by entering a den of sin.”
Gertrude snorted.
“What?”
“Your perfect reputation. That’s what. You’re ridiculous.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you are a cranky old man, a real meanieface! You have no friends. You are uptight and stingy.”
“Wow, and you’re just the tact fairy aren’t you?”
“What in tarnation is a tact fairy?”
Calvin sighed as he pulled into the drugstore’s lot. He got out of the car as if to leave her in it, but she climbed out and trailed in after him.
She busied herself with the perfume testers as she reviewed the situation in her head. By my count, four suspects: Silas the water park owner, who seems quite innocent, with his alibi and all; mystery man from second photo; Mayor Pouliot; and Joel the wonder dad. Hmm. Oh, wait, what about their wives? Maybe they’d be mad enough to ...
“Ready?” Calvin was standing there staring at her.
“Yep.” She turned and followed him to the registers.
“You smell ridiculous,” Calvin said.
“Thank you.”
As they approached the registers, the two clerks were snickering furtively. Then Gertrude heard one of them say, “No really. Be careful or he’ll report you. I’m not kidding.”
Gertrude looked at Calvin to see if he’d heard too. Apparently he had because he said, “I only report people who don’t do their jobs. Or little arrogant hussies like you who think all old people are deaf. For your information, I’m wearing a seven thousand dollar pair of hearing aids. And I can afford these hearing aids because I worked hard my whole life, you ungrateful snots!”
One of the young women rang Calvin up with trembling fingers while the other tried to keep a straight face.
Gertrude remained silent until they were outside. “Right,” she said. “Your reputation is impeccable.”
“Oh, close your trap!” Calvin said as he opened his door. “Get in the car before I leave you here.”
Gertrude did as she was told, for once.
“You got any other stops you need to make?” Calvin asked.
“You mean other than Private Eyes?”
“Yeah. That’s what I mean. It’s five o’clock. Pretty sure there’s not a lot of action on the pole just yet.”
“How did you know there’s a pole?” Gertrude raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, stop trying to be a super sleuth. Don’t all strip clubs have poles?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only been in one strip club in my life.”
“Well, you’re one ahead of me.”
Gertrude and Calvin decided to have dinner together. She suggested Burger King because she had several coupons in her walker pouch. Some of them weren’t even expired yet, she was sure of it. But Calvin said that fast food was for white trash. Gertrude suggested the fried chicken joint on the edge of town, but Calvin wrinkled his nose up. Last time he was there, the waitress had forgotten to refill his wine, he said. Gertrude didn’t even know they served wine there. Finally, after driving a few laps around town, Calvin decided on the Honor House. He said he hadn’t been there in years, which comforted Gertrude immensely. She hoped that meant no one would remember him.
Gertrude had never been to the Honor House, and when they walked in and she looked at the “specials” board, she understood why. “Um, Calvin?” she whispered. “I can’t afford to eat here. Are you bonkers?”
“Well then, just get some soup or something.”
A well-groomed woman behind a small bar asked if they had reservations.
Instead of just saying no, Calvin said, “Do we really need reservations for 5:30 on a weeknight?”
The woman smiled. “Right this way.”
The Honor House was set up like an ordinary house, with small rooms offering three or four tables each. Gertrude squinted in the dim light and then sat down clumsily in the wooden chair the hostess pulled out for her. The hostess then deftly collapsed the walker and leaned it against the wall. “Your server will be right with you,” she said with a smile, and then scurried off to be verbally abused by some other patron.
The server introduced himself as Antoine, and offered them a glass of house wine. Gertrude quickly said, “No, thank you. No alcohol. We are fighting crime tonight.” The well-trained server didn’t flinch at this.
Calvin wordlessly slid his glass closer to the server, who poured two tablespoons of wine into the glass. Calvin swirled the wine around in the glass, appearing to examine it for floaties, then sniffed it, then tasted it, and then nodded what was apparently approval. Antoine filled the glass and said, “I’ll give you a moment with the menus.”
“What was that all about?” Gertrude asked.
“What?”
“Why did you sniff the wine?”
“Gracious, Gertrude, haven’t you ever left the trailer park?” Calvin opened his menu.
Gertrude followed suit. “How can you read this?” she asked. “There’s no light in here.”
“You don’t need to read it, do you? Aren’t you just having soup?”
Gertrude closed her menu with a snap and crossed her arms across her chest, determined not to speak for the rest of the meal. She ended up with a twelve dollar cup of French onion soup. Calvin had the apricot mustard chicken. When they’d been there two hours and Gertrude had lost feeling in all of her right leg and most of her left, Calvin ordered the chocolate torte for dessert. Fifty minutes after that, they were done, and the check was brought. Calvin asked them to go back and create two different checks so there wouldn’t “be any confusion.”
Antoine brought back two separate checks, still not letting on whether he was as annoyed with their presence as he should have been. Gertrude began to dig through her walker pouch for dollar bills and loose change. She had counted out seven dollars when Calvin reminded her, “Don’t forget to tip.” She got to nine dollars before giving up.
“That’s all I’ve got, Calvin.”
Calvin rolled his eyes, scooped up her money, ripped her check from her hands and headed toward the door, leaving Gertrude to unfold her own walker, pull herself up onto her numb legs, and then stand there while the blood flowed back into her toes. As it did so, she surreptitiously put the salt and pepper shakers into her walker pouch.
By the time she got outside, Calvin was waiting for her with the car running. She collapsed into the front seat, suddenly exhausted.
“I suppose I have to pay for your Private Eyes cover charge too?” he asked.