Page 44 of Rest In Pink

“Rangers lead the way.”

“Not in this case.”

The phone went dead. For the first time I noticed that not only could I see what was on the hill, there was an excellent view of all of Burney laid out along the river. From this vantage point it looked peaceful and cozy. Enticing.

Maybe this was a view somebody else needed to see.

Chapter Nineteen

The next three days were jam-packed.

On Thursday, Thacker’s post hit O’Toole as mayor implying graft and skullduggery, which I thought was overwriting. I could see O’Toole committing graft, but he just didn’t have the brains for skullduggery. The post brought the O’Tooles into the police station, breathing fire, which made George look even more ragged. I began to worry about heart attacks. Meanwhile, Faye kept up her running Facebook battle with Thacker and her shilling for ML’s GoFundMe, which boggled my mind. ML had killed her daughter, why would Faye help ML?

In other mysteries, Cash called me to ask me to lunch again. I said no. He said, “Come on, you have to eat.” I told him about Marianne. He said, “Lizzie, we have a lot of history together, you can’t ignore that.” I said I wasn’t ignoring it. I remembered it all too well and it was all bad memories. He said, “Well then, let’s make some good ones.” I told him I was already making good ones with Vince and hung up. I didn’t know what the hell he wanted from me, but he wasn’t getting it.

Peri turned out to be one of the most well-educated kids on the planet, with more lessons than I would have been able to stand, so on that same Thursday, I took her to her swimming lesson in the morning and her tennis lesson in the afternoon. I wore myAmity Island Swim Clubtee and Crystal laughed, so that was good since that movie was really old, but of course a swim instructor would know it. Then on the way home Peri said she wanted to learn how to crochet (we went to JoAnn’s in the next town for yarn and hooks and, for me, cotton rope which turned out to be called Cotton Piping Filler Cord, 2/3 of an inch wide and $1.39 a yard on sale, what a deal), and then after dinner she wanted to learn how to make egg rolls (I explained that egg rolls had to be purchased not made), and then that night at bedtime she asked why men had nipples. We googled that one; turns out all fetuses are female in the first weeks until the testosterone kicks in. We talked about that for a while before she went to sleep.

Somewhere in there, I got Anemone to write about the house she’d lived in with the actor, who I’d taken to calling the Cheating Scum. This was possibly because of all the times Cash had cheated on me when I was too young and stupid to poison his beer because Anemone was pretty calm about the CS. “He wasn’t evil,” she told me finally. “He just had no empathy and no brains. He did look good on film, though.” Here’s a tip: if the best thing you can say about a guy is that he took a good picture, run. (Yes, I know, glass houses.) Anyway, the house had been one of the modern things with one of those pools with the disappearing edge and a lot of angular design points and she’d hated it. Again, that was probably a clue. But she’d chosen the scripts that took him from B level to A, and he was grateful enough to her to drop a bomb of money on her in the divorce settlement, so I think she just never looked back. What made me happy was how her description of his house contrasted with the one she’d shared with Anthony the hitman. Turns out, Anemone can get pretty emotional talking about houses that she doesn’t realize are reflections of her relationships.

On Friday, Thacker went after Vermillion Inc., which we now knew was the name of a company affiliated with Senator Amy Wilcox that was trying to buy all the property through Cash’s front work, castigating them for driving ‘poor Ken Porter’ out of business, which made Ken want to kill him. I have no idea how Vermillion Inc. felt about it, but I assume they weren’t pleased. Thacker also posted about the Pitts family, whose children had divergent paths, one marrying up with Cleve Blue (that was Faye), and the other falling down into prison (her brother Mickey). Faye kept up her running Facebook battle with Thacker and also kept shilling for ML’s GoFundMe.

I wore my Happy BunnyWhen Life Gives You Lemonade, Squirt the Juice in the Eyes of Your Enemiest-shirt for about five minutes until Peri saw it and the lust in her eyes was unmistakable. Clearly this was a child who understood the importance of T-shirts, so I took it off and gave it to her, and she put it on over her swimsuit, where it hung down to her knees. She kept looking in the mirror in my bedroom and laughing, so I put on myThe Universe Is Made of Protons, Neutrons, Electrons, and Moronstee, and then I had to explain it to her, so we got some STEM work in there, too. The first step in creating a t-shirt collector. I’m a great babysitter.

When Peri and I got home from swimming lesson, I tried to get Anemone to work on Chapter Five: The Musician, pushing her to include the fact that she has a stepdaughter she gets along with quite well, and pointing out that ignoring the daughter would only cause comment since it’s not like people don’t know she exists. Anemone was adamant that Olivia did not want to be mentioned, and what Olivia wanted, she got; the children of celebrities did not owe the public anything. I pointed out that since she was in her early thirties, Olivia was hardly a child, and since she was doing quite well as an architect, she really wasn’t all that vulnerable and might be able to use the PR. Anemone flat out said, “No,” and went into Cincinnati in a huff to see an old friend from one of her marriages. She’d been doing that a lot lately, which was annoying as hell, especially since we only had until the end of the month to finish this sucker. But by now I had my ace in the hole: she promised to write about the house she had made the musician buy that was close to Olivia’s school. That was going to be some good crunchy stuff right there.

Peri and I had an excellent lunch of ham and brie sandwiches on brioche with something Marianne called bechamel sauce that she had somehow then breaded and grilled, taking “toasted cheese” to the level of sublime, and a homemade tomato soup made of tomato, heavy cream, and some secret ingredient that was a little peppery and a little crunchy that made me swear off Campbell’s for life. Then I worked on The Book, and at four, I took Peri to her ballet lesson and waited outside in case Faye came by to kidnap her, and then we came home, and I tried to talk Anemone into mentioning Olivia in the house stuff she was writing since they’d bought the house because of Olivia. I was about as effective as Veronica would be if she tried to type.

The worst thing about those two days? No Vince. Something hairy was going down at the police department and he was all in on that.

I was going to have to do something about that.

SATURDAY

Posted on BurneyCommunityNews on Facebook, Saturday 9AM:

Detective Bartlett regrets that he is no longer able to help us with the hacking problem, but we are not giving up. Also, our Page Administrator, MaryLou Blue, has asked me to postagainthat anyone wishing to donate to the legal fund of MaryLou Blue can go to her page at GoFundMe because her total so far is $10.95 and that will not pay her lawyers.

Thank you, Faye Blue, Page Administrator Pro Tem

Posted on BurneyCommunityNews on Facebook, Saturday 9:15 AM

VERMILLION INC IS SENATOR LINKED

Ask and the answers appear: State Senator Amy Wilcox is the driving force behind Vermillion Inc, using her go-fer lackey, Cash Porter to cover for her. Seems like history repeats itself: Rumor has it that her much older husband, former State Senator Alex Wilcox, had a similar arrangement with Cleve Blue for some nefarious purpose that was not buying up Burney to exploit its innocent citizens. Was he behind the factory locating to Mexico? So, what’s the plan here, Cash? Stepping into your short-term father-in-law’s shoes to front for political power for money like he did? And how did the Pitts play into that? As in Faye Pitts, Cleve’s wife, and her brother, Mickey Pitts, our local jailbird?

Stay tuned for the shocking answers and more thought-provoking questions. Go to BurneySecrets&Lies at ThomasThacker.online and pre-order the forthcoming tell-all e-book on Burney and all its dark secrets. You will not be disappointed.

Chapter Twenty

I followed my Saturday evening routine by stopping by JB’s. I parked out back and took a moment to collect myself.

The past couple of days had been a waste since everyone involved in the Lavender investigation had finally had to face a state review board. Luckily, it was more form than substance given that her killer, MaryLou Blue, had pleaded out on attempted murder, a higher charge than manslaughter. Still, it ate time, and it was embarrassing to have all our mistakes pointed out. Especially since the damn senator and that idiot O’Toole had told George to take the case and then disappeared when it came time to be accountable. But I think behind the scenes, the senator had told the board to go through the motions and then file a report to use against George at the opportune time. Bartlett made himself scarce for the whole thing and nobody missed him.

I hadn’t had a chance to see Liz in those days, but she called me a lot, so I got the chance to hear her voice. I needed more than her voice, so that was another reason I’d had it with O’Toole and the senator: they were cutting into my naked diner time.

Rain hadn’t gotten back to me yet on the Iron Wolves. I’d read in the papers about the double homicide in Cincinnati she was working and it was a tough scene.

Thacker’s posts were pissing more people off. George wasted hours arguing with O’Toole that he couldn’t arrest Thacker for what he wrote. There was a First Amendment after all. O’Toole was more focused on utilizing the Second on Thacker. Why this town had ever elected him mayor was beyond me. But I had gotten pissed again when Thacker had implied that Ken was going out of business. Ken didn’t need that kind of shit. The mention of the Pitts family at the end of Saturday’s post had been odd, almost like some kind of code. George had told me that Mickey Pitts was in prison, and from what his son Jim had told me, that was a good thing. Thacker outing Senator Wilcox as the power behind Vermillion Inc. was interesting, but Vermillion wasn’t doing anything illegal and besides, the senator was far above my pay grade.

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