Black Cat Weekly #25

A GOOD, SAFE PLACE, by Judith Green-1

A GOOD, SAFE PLACE,

by Judith GreenThe Barb Goffman Presents series showcases

the best in modern mystery and crime stories,

personally selected by one of the most acclaimed

short stories authors and editors in the mystery

field, Barb Goffman, for Black Cat Weekly.

As Celeste hitched her walker into the living room, she stopped short. “Who are you?” she demanded.

The young woman looked up from the old rolltop desk, where she had been rearranging stacks of papers, a feather duster tucked under one arm. She sighed, her shoulders drooping. “I’m Lisa, dear,” she said with elaborate patience, as if she were talking to a child. “I’m here to help you while your daughter is away.”

Watch your tone, young lady. Celeste pushed her walker across the floor and lowered herself into her armchair. “Is Margery at school? She teaches school, you know.”

“No, Margery’s in Wisconsin, dear,” this Lisa person chirped. “They all went out for Melanie’s graduation. Oh, aren’t you just so proud of your granddaughter?” she added, with a false, bright smile. “Now, can I get you anything? A cup of tea? Are you warm enough, dear? Would you like a blanket over your legs?”

Celeste waved the questions away. She wished the woman would stop fussing. She looked at the desk, its top still rolled up to expose bundles of yellowed papers, a stack of leather-covered ledgers, a box of old Christmas cards. “What are you doing in there?” she asked. “What are you looking for?”

The woman looked at the desk, then at her. “Me? Why, nothing, dear. You were looking for something in the desk this morning. Shall I close it?”

“No. Leave it.” This morning? Had this woman been here since this morning? This person— What had she said her name was? Never mind.

At any rate, that had been Walter’s desk. Ever since he’d been gone, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to use it. She kept her important papers in… Hm. Well, they were in a good, safe place. Somewhere.

“What’s that sound?” Celeste’s head snapped around. “Who’s in the kitchen?”

“My husband,” the woman said. “I hope you don’t mind if he—”

But Celeste hauled herself to her feet again and started hitching her walker toward the kitchen doorway. At the table by the window sat a beefy sort of man unwrapping a hamburger. He nodded curtly in Celeste’s direction, then laid the hamburger on the paper it had come in and reached a paw into a white paper bag for a fistful of french fries. Celeste could smell the hot grease.

She peered out the kitchen window. “Whose car is that out there?”

The woman had followed her into the kitchen. “Why, that’s our car, dear.”

“What’s it doing in the backyard?” Celeste asked. “We’ve always parked in the driveway, right next to the front steps. There’s plenty of room, now that they’ve taken my car away. He needn’t go mucking up my backyard.” She glared at the man, who kept his eyes fixed on his hamburger, holding it in both hands as if it might get away. He took a huge bite and chewed noisily.

“Oh, but,” said the woman, “that’s where Margery told us to put it.”

“Why would she tell you that?” Celeste hitched herself around so that she could look at the woman again. “Who did you say you were?”

Again that sigh, the droop of the shoulders. “I’m Lisa, dear. Your caregiver.”

“Caregiver!” Celeste snorted. “That’s a stupid word if I’ve ever heard one!”

But the girl did look familiar. Where had Celeste seen her before? In the grocery store? Yesterday, perhaps, at the hairdresser’s. There’d been someone getting a trim, all swaddled up with that sheet thing around her neck, while she and Gladys had been under the hair dryers. Celeste had caught the person’s eye in the mirror once, while Gladys had been going on the way she always did, shouting over the roar of the dryers about immigrants who can’t speak English. Oh, and about banks failing all over the country. The two of them had been smart, Gladys said, to get their money out yesterday before their own town’s bank failed.

Celeste shook her head. Whatever would she do without Gladys?

“Here’s your lunch,” the woman said, trotting over to the table with a sandwich of some sort, neatly cut into quarters, on a plate. “By the way, you’re out of coffee.”

“I couldn’t be!” Celeste homed in on the table. The meaty husband had, mercifully, already choked down his hamburger and was heading toward the back door. “I’m sure there’s at least half a jar of coffee left.”

“Well—” The woman held up the jar, which held nothing except a dark crust around the bottom. “Empty!” she sang.

“Hmph!” Celeste snorted. This woman’s husband must have drunk up quarts of Celeste’s good instant coffee to wash down that nasty hamburger. She hmphed again as the man let the back door slam shut behind him so hard that a satchel stuffed full of folded brown-paper grocery bags jumped off the doorknob and fell to the floor.

“Let’s just hang this over here, shall we?” The woman crossed the floor to hang the satchel on the cellar doorknob. “Now, what else do we need? We should start a list. Probably the usual. Bread, milk. Are we out of eggs?”

We? Celeste gripped the edge of the kitchen table and hoisted herself out of her chair, then grasped her walker and swung it smartly into position. She hitched her way back into the living room and lowered herself into her armchair. She always felt more…well, collected in her armchair. Smarter, with her calendar, and her box of Kleenex, and her magazines, and the TV remote, and a nice hundred-watt bulb in the lamp. She thought of her armchair as Headquarters.

But the woman had followed her, carrying the plate with the quartered sandwich, which she laid on Celeste’s card table, right on top of the letters Celeste had been meaning to answer. Now she hovered, backlit by the early summer sunlight streaming in at the window so that her face was in shadow. “Would you like to go after you’ve finished your lunch?” she asked.

“Go where?”

“To the grocery store!”

“Oh, that.” Ignoring the sandwich on its little plate, Celeste riffled through the magazines in the basket next to her chair and drew out a Woman’s Day. “What did you say your name was?”

“I’m Lisa, dear. So we’ll go to the grocery store right after lunch.”

“Oh, no.” Celeste peered at the magazine’s brightly colored cover. Hm. Easy Summer Barbecues Your Family Will Love. “I always take a nap after lunch. Besides, I do my shopping with Gladys Whitman.”

“Yes, but Gladys is in Millinocket, isn’t she? She went to visit her sister for the Memorial Day weekend.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose.”

“So we’ll go right after lunch, okay?”

Oh, dear. Go where? The young woman seemed to expect an answer, so Celeste smiled her sweetest smile. “We’ll see.”

She looked back down at the magazine in her lap. Turn Your Deck Into An Outdoor Living Room. That sounded interesting.

* * * *

“My, my, look at you!” chirped the woman. “I came in to fix your supper, and here you are eating already!”

What was the woman’s name? Priscilla? No, that didn’t sound right. Melissa? Celeste gave up and went back to her toast. She’d fixed it as she always did, buttered and then a thin skim of marmalade, with a cup of tea to which she’d added a half-teaspoon of sugar and a dite of milk from the plastic jug in the fridge.

Hm. The milk might have gone bad. Perhaps this woman could make herself useful and get some more. Otherwise Celeste would have to call Brenda, next door. She hated to bother Brenda.

“What else would you like to eat this evening, dear?” The woman opened the cupboard door and began moving things about. In a matter of moments, she had the saltines next to a box of cereal, and the cans of soup where the sack of sugar ought to be.

“Leave that be!” Celeste snapped. “I’ve already made my supper!”

“Oh, yes, dear,” the woman said. “But just a piece of toast won’t be enough.” She stood on tiptoe to survey the top shelf. “How about a can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti?”

“Thanks, but no.”

The woman closed the cupboard door and looked at Celeste, her skinny blond eyebrows drawn together in a worried frown. “Well, then. I’ll get a load of laundry started.” She bustled into the back room, and Celeste could hear her opening the cupboard doors in there, too. “Just looking for the laundry soap,” she called.

“Well, it’s in there somewhere.” Celeste took a sip of her tea. Yes, the milk was quite definitely off. She’d really have to see about sending that woman to the store in the morning for another pint.

Did she have any money in her pocketbook? No, she’d put her last dollar bill in the collection plate last Sunday. She glanced over at the satchel of shopping bags hanging from the cellar doorknob. She’d better give the woman at least ten dollars. There was bound to be something else they needed. Perhaps even a twenty.

But before she could begin the process of getting up, the washing machine started up with a slosh, and the woman reappeared beside her chair. “Can I get you more tea, dear?”

“No, thank you,” Celeste said. “I always have one cup.”

“You just enjoy it, then, and I’ll go turn down your bed.” And the woman scuttled toward Celeste’s bedroom. Well, properly it was the dining room, but Margery had insisted that she sleep downstairs after she took that fall. Was it last year? Two years ago?

Now, there’d been something she wanted that woman—Lisa! That was it! Lisa!—to get at the store. But what?

Celeste looked around the kitchen, hoping for inspiration. She took another sip of her tea. Hm. Was the milk a little off?

* * * *

“Hey, Mom, how’s it going? This is Ted.”

Celeste sat up on the edge of her bed, where she’d been having a bit of a lie-down after supper, and smiled into the telephone. “Why, hello, sweetheart. How nice to hear your voice. How’s Nellie?”

“She’s great. Just great. So… Everything’s okay? You’re eating and everything? Taking your meds?”

“Yes, yes. I presume that your sister asked you to check up on me while she’s gone.”

“Yeah, well—”

“She’s always worrying about me. Silly girl, hiring someone to stay here with me while she’s away. I’ve been perfectly used to living alone ever since your father died, but Margery stops in every day on her way home from school and—”

“Wait a minute, Mom. Did you say she hired someone?”

“Why, this woman Lisa, of course. Her husband, too, I suppose, though he’s been mostly tidying the cellar and the attic. Just for something to do, he said.”

“Mom, there’s someone staying there with you?”

“I told you: this woman Lisa and her husband. She’s very attentive—”

“Mom—”

“But I wish her husband would park in the driveway instead of behind the house.”

“Mom! These people—”

“It’s just while Margery’s gone. She’s in Wisconsin, you know.”

“Yes, Mom. For Melanie’s college graduation. But about these people—”

“What people?”

“Staying with you. How do you know them?”

“I told you. Margery got them to—”

“Crap! Mom, are you sure—”

“Language!”

“Sorry. Look, Mom, I’ve got to go. I’ve got to try to get hold of Margery.”

“But, sweetie, we’ve hardly—”

“Bye, Mom.”

Celeste sat glaring at the receiver before she replaced it in the cradle. “Boys!” she muttered. “They’ll never tell you what’s on their minds!”

“Who was that?” Lisa stood in the doorway. Her hair was tousled and festooned with bits of cobweb. Helping her husband in the attic, most likely.

“Hm? Are you all right, dear? You seem awfully tired.”

Lisa straightened up. Plastered that cheery smile on her face. “I was just wondering who you were talking to on the phone.”

“The phone?” Celeste looked down at it, resting quietly on the bookcase beside the bed. “Oh, the phone. I was talking to my son in California. He just called to say hello, but he never stays on the line for very long.” She sighed. “It gets lonesome sometimes.” She looked up at Lisa. “Would you like to look at some pictures for a minute?”