I sank onto the sofa. “Died?” I repeated. “Paula’s dead? Of course she’s not dead. What are you saying, that she’s a ghost? You’ve been watching too many of those old horror movies. This is not a movie. Paula is not a ghost.”
Fred sat beside me, heaved a long sigh, scrunched up his mouth and rolled his eyes. “I know she’s not a ghost. But she’s not Paula Walters either. My guess is, she stole the identity of somebody who died young.”
“Wow. That’s the kind of thing you see in the movies. Real people don’t do that.”
He sighed again. “Real people do it all the time. That’s where they got the idea for the movies.”
“I meant, people we know don’t do that. Real people like Paula.”
“Either she faked her own death at the age of two, she’s a ghost, or she changed her identity. Take your pick.”
“All right, I guess we have to go with option C.” I opened the folder and flipped through it. Fred had printed out several sheets of documentation.
“Buying that old car she came here in was Paula’s first appearance upon returning from the hereafter,” he said. “Renting your house was the second.”
I studied the documents and finally found one I could comprehend. “She bought the car in Kansas City.”
“For cash from an individual. Then she applied for a driver’s license, stating she’d never had one before.”
“I guess not if she died at the age of two. She’d have been too short to reach the gas pedal.”
“Probably have a little trouble passing the written test too, unless she was very precocious.”
I thumbed through the papers. “I’m impressed with all the stuff you came up with. You ever thought about being a professional detective?” Might as well use the occasion to open the ongoing discussion of his mysterious occupation.
He shrugged. “You just have to know where to look. I’m not finished. I checked Texas, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and the surrounding states and couldn’t find a birth certificate for Zachary Walters.”
“Why are you so secretive about what you do all day?”
“I work at the computer all day.”
“I know, but what do you do at the computer all day?”
“I spent this afternoon looking for Paula.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what you do?”
“Maybe.”
“But not today.”
“There’s nothing on TV tonight,” he said, changing the subject. He does that a lot. “Want to come over and watch The Day the Earth Stood Still?”
“Might as well. Hey, you know what we need to do? We need to go talk to that apartment manager where Lester Mackey lives, see what we can find out about him.”
“We don’t need to do any such thing.”
I didn’t argue. I recognized his stubborn tone. I’d either have to figure out a way to convince him or I’d have to go by myself. Unless Lester Mackey was listed in the phone book, I wasn’t sure I could get the address without Fred’s help, but I still had Detective Adam Trent’s business card. I could probably figure some way to get the information out of him. I’d picked up a few things from Rick about being sneaky.
“I’ll bring the Cokes and microwave popcorn,” I offered.
“Orville Redenbacher’s Pour-Over Movie Theater Butter?”
“Of course.” I used to eat whatever was on sale, but Fred had me trained.
“I’ll go set up the movie.”
Fred left and I headed for the kitchen to grab the snacks.
As I walked by my recliner, King Henry, without lifting his head, lazily reached out one oversized paw and patted me as if in approval.
“You’re right,” I said. “Sunday night at the movies with a good friend beats the heck out of Saturday night with my cheating, con-artist, almost ex-husband.”
I wasn’t surprised when Paula showed up for work the next day with dark circles under her bloodshot eyes. She’d colored her hair, effectively hiding the blond roots. It was all a uniform, muddy brown. Nondescript.
She always brought Zach with her since the day care center wasn’t open at four a.m., the hour we started work. He’d sleep on the sofa in the closet we facetiously called our office. Even after he woke, he was never a problem. We kept a small television and several of his toys in there, and he was good about entertaining himself. Heck, it was all the kid had ever known. When Paula started working with me, he stayed with us all day because she was too broke to afford child care.
Too broke and too scared to let him out of her sight.
Today she had that same frantic expression, and, as we rushed around making biscuits, doughnuts and other pastries, I noticed she’d resumed her old habit of checking on him every few minutes. I made up my mind that, before the day was over, I would have some answers from her.
Yeah, just like I’d forced Fred to tell me what he does all day.
But I was going to give it my best shot.
Cooking, especially on a tight schedule with no room for error such as leaving the baking powder out of a cake, requires intense concentration. Sometimes we had a few brief moments of calm before the rush of customers at breakfast and again at lunch, but not usually. Usually we were busy from the time we walked through that door until we finished cleaning up after lunch. Mondays were especially hectic, so I knew my questions would have to wait...and I’m not a patient person. Just watching her, sensing her tension, and not knowing what was going on was making me almost as stressed as Paula.
When the customers began to arrive, I noticed she’d resumed her old habit of jumping every time the door opened, keeping her head down and face averted and staying in the kitchen as much as possible. That had been okay when she’d first come to work with me and we weren’t nearly as busy as now. Now we actually needed a third person to help. With the tables and the counter close to capacity, both Paula and I had to stay front row center most of the time. Today every time somebody came in, she darted into the kitchen then reluctantly returned, her steps wooden and her eyes darting around the room, scanning each person there.
After the breakfast crowd we closed to get lunch ready. That was when she normally left to take Zach to the nursery. I wasn’t surprised when she told me she wasn’t going to do that today, that he was running a slight fever. I doubted Zach was sick, but I did know his mother was sick with worry so I played along.
Half an hour later as I was spreading the cream cheese filling on a Chocolate Earthquake Cake and Paula was chopping scallions for a chicken pasta dish, the doorbell rang. Paula gasped and jumped. I went out front to answer the door.
A delivery boy stood there with a huge arrangement of yellow roses. They had to be from Rick. I should refuse them.
“Lindsay Kramer?” the boy asked.
I’m a twenty-first century kind of girl so I never legally gave up my birth name of Powell though I let friends and family call me Kramer for the sake of simplicity—until the infamous Muffy night.
However, in the interest of what looked like at least two dozen roses, I could be Lindsay Kramer one more time. I didn’t see any reason to pass up something I enjoy just because the source was disgusting. I like hot dogs too.
I tipped the boy and accepted the bouquet.
Ignoring the card which probably said something really gooey that would only mess with my mind, I set the flowers on the counter, inhaled their sweet fragrance and admired them for a moment before I started back to the kitchen.
Paula stood in the doorway, arms wrapped tightly around herself, doing her impression of a terrified, anemic ghost.
“Who?” she choked out. “Who are they from?”
“Rick.”
“Are you sure? You didn’t read the card.”
“Positive.” Nevertheless, I plucked out the card and brought it to her. “You read it.”
“Before I knew Mariah’s name...? That’s a strange message.”
I hadn’t meant for her to read it out loud so I could hear it.
I sighed. “It’s from a song about the wind. Before I knew Mariah’s name and heard her wailing whining, I had a girl and she had me, and the sun was always shining. Rick used to sing it to me.”
“Oh.” Paula looked vastly relieved while I was starting to feel pretty stressed. I’d been right. The card was messing with my mind. That was Rick’s specialty.
“Sitting in a tree in the park.” I wasn’t relating the incident to Paula so much as reliving the incident myself for the second time in just over twenty-four hours.
“Oh?”
I shrugged, tore the card in half and tossed it into the trash. “I guess you had to be there. Give the devil his due, he sure knows how to get to me. I knew I should have refused to accept those flowers. I need to get back to my cake.”
But as soon as I got a chance, I was going to give Paula the third degree. I was going to find out why she’d faked her death at the age of two and why roses frightened her.
I didn’t get the chance before we left work. Customers were around, Zach was around, and then she and Zach left to go home. When I pulled into my own driveway, there was no sign of either of them in the house next door. They could be inside behind those closed curtains, down at the park where she often took him to play, or they could have taken a fast plane to Mexico.
King Henry was waiting on my porch. I’d thought he might leave for his old home or even for someplace new while I was gone, but he was still there. He strolled to the edge of the porch to meet me and wound himself around my legs. Cats must have very flexible bones.
I set the flowers on the porch while I unlocked my door, and Henry sniffed them suspiciously.
“They’re from the disgusting man who was here yesterday.” I wasn’t going to lie to him. “But we can pretend I picked them on the way home, if that’s all right with you.”
He looked disdainful. I could tell he wasn’t into pretend.
I lay down for a nap. Going to work at four in the morning often leads to sleep deficit.
I woke a couple of hours later, went downstairs and poked through the pantry. My pickings were getting a bit slim. Opening a can of sardines would seriously compromise the fragrance of the roses, and I just didn’t feel like another peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I found a coupon for buy one pizza, get one free. I could invite Paula and Zach to join me. Ply her with pepperoni then give her the third degree.
She didn’t answer her phone until the fourth ring, and then it sounded like she dropped the receiver and fumbled with it before finally getting it to her mouth. “Hello?” Her voice was breathless and confused.
“Hi, it’s me. You okay?”
“Who is this?” Her words were slightly slurred. Had Paula been drinking? She refused to even have a margarita with me, saying she had to be alert to take care of Zach. “Paula, it’s Lindsay. What’s wrong?”
“Lindsay.” She drew in a loud, shaky breath. “I’m sorry. I must have fallen asleep on the sofa. My head’s fuzzy.”
“Well, wake up. I’m getting ready to order a pizza. It should be here in about thirty minutes. You and Zach want to come over?”
“Thanks, but I don’t think so. I’m really tired. We went to the park after work, and now I think we’ll stay in the rest of the night.”
“Okay. I’ll bring my pizza to your house.”
There was a moment of silence, then she laughed. “Has anybody ever accused you of being pushy?” It was the first time I’d heard her laugh since before the visit from the cops.
“As in pushy broad? That’s what they put under my picture in my high school annual, and I was just a novice in those days. I like to think I’ve perfected the art since then.”
She laughed again. “You have. All right, we’ll come over to your house as soon as I wash my face and get Zach up. He must be asleep too. He isn’t trying to climb out of his playpen.”
“See you in a few minutes.”
I started to hang up when she screamed. “Lindsay!”
“What?”
“He’s gone! Zach’s not in his playpen!”
“So he’s learned to climb out. He’s probably been doing it a long time and just crawls back in so you’ll think you have him corralled. Where’s he going to go with that maximum security system you have on all the doors and windows?”
“The door’s open!”
“I’ll be right over.”