1 Hot Scheming Mess (10 page)

“Wow. You’ve outdone yourself on non-clarity.”

“Sorry.”

“Okay. So far, your grandpa is in mysterious trouble, you’re not sure what it is, and he may be gone somewhere.”

“Right.”

“It may stem from a long time ago.”

“Yes.”

“He left you papers to guard, and it’s the only thing that might give you more information on what his trouble is.”

“Check.”

“He told you not to tell Jaws, I mean Ann, about any of it, and there’s a part that you can’t even tell me.”

“Damn, you’re good.”

“And Ann is waiting for you at her office.”

“We’re meeting for coffee. But I have to take some time to look at these before I go. I could use some moral support.”

She pulled the rusty paper clips off the papers and gently unfolded them on the kitchen table. Inside the folded up newspaper clippings were more clippings and other papers.

They decided to divide the papers and start reading whatever was in the pile in front of them. Spenser started in on a newspaper clipping, while Madison noticed what appeared to be a crudely scrawled, one-word note. It was written on a corner piece of paper, full of stains, and the one word was not readable. At least, not to Madison. The letters of the word didn’t look right. Written with a dull pencil, there was an “a” and an “h” but the next letter was odd looking. It looked like the letter “x” with extra legs on it. It was followed by an “e” and then what looked like a backward square “n” and one more “a.” The paper corner appeared to have been torn from stationery. The torn edge was next to what looked like a symbol or logo. The logo looked like the letter “W” with one of its middle strokes reaching up to form the letter “P.” The paper had fold marks as if it had once been folded up to be very small.

She put the note aside and started in on a newspaper clipping. As they read and compared notes with each other, what came out was a series of stories about the International Student Exposition held in 1969 in Seattle. There were visiting students from other countries with pictures of the mayor and governor, shaking hands with the winners. Apparently the student exposition was a month’s long touring event around the world that had made a final stop in Seattle.

The Seattle locals were quite proud of the new Washington Plaza Hotel, a luxury high rise where the city of Seattle had put up all the student guests, their guardians, and the judges. The University of Washington campus was the site where the science fairs and math contests were held, as well as playing host for some of the spillover from the Washington Plaza Hotel, putting the university dormitories to good use.

There had been the occasional protest march by people with very long hair. They looked like hippies that Madison had seen in old movies. The newspaper had lots of photographs of various dignitaries posing with teenage students from all over the world who had gathered to compete.

The subject matter was boring to Madison, and her eyes glazed over as she wondered why these stories had captured her grandfather’s attention. Each clipping seemed to be more of the same topic, only with different pictures, or an editorial on education in America. There was one story that speculated about whether the contests were rigged or whether judges were biased toward their own countries. Some accused the Soviet Union of sending KGB spies, trying to plant moles since not all of their students were accounted for at the contests. Ruffled feathers were soon smoothed however, with the revelation that one student was homesick and preferred to stay in her room. But most of the stories were upbeat, and the host city of Seattle tried not to let cold war politics become involved in what was supposed to be a celebration of educated youth.

Madison showed Spenser the one-word note. But neither of them could get a hook on what possible secret was hidden in all this paperwork. The only links Madison could see were that the logo on the note had the letters “W” and “P,” which she assumed stood for the Washington Plaza Hotel where all the visitors had stayed, and the newspaper stories were about international students, and the note was not in English. So what language was it?

Madison shook her head. “The irony here is killing me.”

“What?”

“Well, this is one of the few times I could really use the expertise of an FBI agent. My mom might actually know what some of this stuff means.”

“Was your grandpa really serious about not telling her anything?”

“He was adamant. And I don’t get it. I always thought he was closer to her then he was to me. I think she visits him more often than I do.”

Spenser said, “You know, you really should get to know your mom anyway.”

“So you keep telling me.”

“You’re not fooling me. You’ve wanted your mother all your life.”

Madison was quiet for a moment, then said, “She doesn’t want
me
, Spenser. She just wants to do the right thing.” They both went quiet this time as they sorted through the clippings.

Madison asked, “You’re close with your mom, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I can’t picture it. I don’t even know what to talk about with her. We have nothing in common.”

“Tell her about things in your life. Your friends, your various jobs. Hey, tell her about your boyfriends! That’s great ‘Mom’ material. They always want to know about their daughter’s boyfriends.”

“That sounds awkward. How do you get started?”

“It practically starts itself. My mom asks all the time. You could tell your mom about ExBoy.”

Spenser kept reading a clipping while Madison decided to move on to another paper that looked like a document. Or rather, a copy of a document. It was askew in the center of dark wide borders. As soon as her eyes saw the title of the document, she was immediately confused. It said Certificate of Live Birth at the top of the paper. Her mother’s name was there. Anna Lisa Cruz. Female. It gave the usual statistics such as the baby’s weight and length. It listed the hospital, physician, father’s, and mother’s names, which were of course Vincent and Lisa Cruz, and the address where they lived at the time, which was the same house that Grandpa still owned and lived in now.

“I don’t get it,” said Madison. “This is a copy of my mother’s birth certificate. Why would he put it with these papers? There’s nothing on this document that is a secret.”

“Has he ever mentioned the stories in these clippings?”

“No. But the clippings are all dated the same year she was born. None of this should raise any alarms. Yet he had these things hidden for a long time.” Madison felt a small panic trying to get a foothold. “What am I not seeing?”

Spenser looked down at the birth certificate Madison was holding. “I didn’t know your mom’s middle name was Lisa.”

“Yeah, that was my grandmother’s name and…” She looked down at the certificate. “That’s odd. Her birth date is off. This would make her almost two months older than she is.”

“Typos?” Spenser offered.

“If it were just typos, why would he hide it?” She kept staring at the birthdate.
So she might be two months older? Why would that matter?

Madison’s elbow brushed the tabletop causing a few clippings to fall from the table. As they fell, a small but heavy square of paper came loose from the back of one of the clippings, making a beeline for the floor as one lighter paper floated down, taking its time. Madison caught it in the air before it landed and heard a knock on the door.

Spenser said. “That’s Daniel. His arms must be full with grocery bags. He always over-buys.” She shook her head as she got up to go open the door.

Madison stared at the little paper that had just floated. It had three capital letters followed by three numbers. It read WWC 989. She turned it over and saw one more thing. It was faint but something was written there. She read, “Studebaker. Sounds like a kind of oatmeal.”

“It’s a car,” ExBoy said as he walked into the kitchen. “Collector’s item now. They quit making them in the sixties or seventies.”

“What are you doing here?” Madison’s surprise turned to confusion. She stood up and looked at Spenser as if Spenser might provide an answer.

“Don’t look at me. I didn’t know he followed you here.”

Madison turned to ExBoy. “You followed me?”

“No. I just figured you’d be with Spenser, that’s all.”

“Why did you think that?”

“Because you were upset earlier. So I drove by and sure enough, I saw your car outside. What’s the big deal?”

Madison turned back to Spenser and saw her trying not to smile. Madison knew what she was thinking. To cover her earlier lie, Madison shrugged her shoulders at Spenser and said, “Some guys never get enough.”

“Get enough what?” He stood there, his brows creasing.

“Enough attention.” Madison knew he was confused and she left him hanging. She needed him not to understand the subtext and hoped he would play along if he did.

“Enough? I couldn’t get any. I’ve been trying to talk to you.” With lazy movements he toyed with a few strands of her hair, but his eyes were not happy. “That’s why I went to your place earlier, but you were already upset about something. I didn’t want to make it worse.” He looked back at her and asked, “Is it okay if we talk now?”

She answered by snaking her arms around his neck. “You just want your, wink wink, lucky t-shirt. I told you.” she looked close into his eyes, “I’ll give it to you later.” She knew right away that she’d gone too far.

When comprehension hit, ExBoy’s face dropped. “What… you want us to be fuck buddies now?” He stared at her, while Madison tried to figure out how to get out of this without Spenser knowing she had lied. “Wow,” he said, backing away. “Gonna throw me a bone, huh? Little token concession?”

“Wait—”

“I feel so special.”

“That’s not—”

“If you don’t want us to be together, fine. I get it. But I don’t need another fuck buddy offer.” He turned around and headed for the door. Madison hurried after him.

“What do you mean you don’t need
another
—”

“But if you don’t want to be with me, then at least be a friend.” His voice heated up. “I need you to give a shit, Madison.”

“Give a shit about what?”

“Who!”

“You?”

“Yes!”

“Mister Fuck Buddy Central? Just how many offers have you had?”

“Have. You’re not listening!”

“Is one named Jen?”

“I’m trying to make a point here, Madison! With you, I thought…” He shook his head, “Forget it.” Walking out, he slammed the door.

Madison, staring at the door, could still feel the sting of the slamming sound in her ears. Her green eyes still wide with shock, her mouth open, she pointed at the door and looked questioningly at Spenser.

“No,” Spenser said, “that’s not material for conversation with your mom.”

Chapter Eleven

Madison blinked. How did this get so upside down? ExBoy was now mad at her for implying that they were having casual sex, something that she assumed he wanted. But she was only pretending in front of Spenser and figured he’d tease her about it later when they were alone. Maybe even try to get her to walk the walk if she was going to talk the talk.

“Um…” Madison confessed to Spenser, “I lied.”

“Yeah. I got that.”

“What just happened?” asked Madison.

“You mean besides the lying part?”

“Yeah. Besides that. He’s a man. All men want sex.”

“How am I supposed to know?” asked Spenser.

“Because you’re the know-it-all and you’re often right.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“You’re always saying everything is about sex. So how about it? What just happened?”

“I got nothing.”

Madison wasn’t sure how much time passed in those moments, but in the quiet she heard a gentle clock ticking from somewhere in the house and realized that neither she nor Spenser had moved. That’s how shocking it was to encounter a man who would turn down meaningless sex.

“What are you going to do?” asked Spenser.

“I don’t know. I don’t know about anything and I don’t have time to deal with it. I should leave for the FBI building downtown.”

“Dressed like that?”

There was a thumping at the door. This time it really was Daniel using his foot to knock while he balanced five full grocery bags.

“Good grief,” Spenser said, when she opened it. “What have you done?” She grabbed a couple of bags from him, looking inside them. Her eyes got bigger. “Yum.” Madison wanted to be polite so she took a bag from him, too.

Daniel said, “Just saw ExBoy driving away. Did he try to get you to be zombies at his booth?”

“Zombies?” Spenser said, looking down into the bag. Daniel nudged her toward the kitchen. They set the bags down on the kitchen counters as Spenser started pulling out the grocery items from the bags. A package of spaghetti noodles, coffee, a sack of ripe peaches… as each item came out Spenser walked back and forth in the kitchen putting things in their right cupboard or into the refrigerator.

“Last night,” Daniel said, “he told the guys he needs more zombies to hang around his booth at Zombie Prom.”

Madison remembered he had wanted his t-shirt for that convention.

Daniel continued, “Didn’t he say anything? He’s going to have a booth there to sell his artwork and a book he’s written. It’s called
Infect Me
.”

“Ew,” Spenser said. Then to Madison she asked, “Do you think that’s what he wanted to talk to you about? Being a zombie at his booth?”

“Who knows?” Madison rubbed her head.

Daniel tilted his chin up at Madison. “Hey, Madison. How was your head this morning?” He smirked.

“Pretty bad, thank you. Then I vomited.”

“Good to hear,” he said. “Nothing like a bad hangover to teach you a lesson. Makes life more interesting.”

“Interesting? You really want to know? I had to drag a giant woman across a carpet and do sit-ups. Then I no-showed for a gig, so now of course I have to look pregnant while I sing to a dead guy.”

Daniel and Spenser stood staring at her.

She continued, “But that stuff is not the good parts. I’m not allowed to tell you the good parts.”

Spenser picked up Madison’s bowl of stew and put it in the microwave. “I’ll warm up her stew. Act natural. She’ll be okay.” To Madison, she said, “Why don’t you show Daniel that weird little note?”