Alex Harris 00 - Armed

Lawrence.” My grandmother gave a hearty hoot. “Wish I could’ve seen that. That man had his bowtie too tight all these years. He needed to let it hang loose.”
    “It wasn’t exactly loose,” I snickered, feeling guilty at laughing at Grandpa’s expense.
    “I just hope your father doesn’t take after him. Poor Mabel,” Meme said.
    I flashed back to my Dad standing in the kitchen with a bowtie earlier and quickly pushed the thought away.
    “You’ve had a busy couple of days, Honey. Sam told me about Friday night. You shoulda called. I played Pinochle with Sybil Sibleman. Try saying that three times fast when you had a bit too much Manischewitz. I lost. I could a used a night breaking and entering. And the way that cop looked at you, I would have liked to see that.” Meme turned and smiled at me. We had no secrets from Meme. What I didn’t tell her, Sam would. “I told you to go after him. He’s got the hots for you something bad from what your sister said.”
    I listened to Meme’s banter while I guided my car down a street lined with old houses wondering what Detective Van der Burg, no, John, was doing and who he was doing it with. Probably no one or else he would have brought her to the pond.
    “Too bad you didn’t find any drugs. That would have cleared things up nicely.”
    “A long shot, but Sam and Millie wanted to find out. I still think whatever got Mrs. Scott killed is tied up in that place and now we know it’s not drugs.”
    “Pull up to the second house on the right,” Meme said.
    Meme, my little grandmother, the one with the hat and the colored hair and the little purse, lived a double life as a loan shark. Okay, obviously not the kind you see on the Sopranos whacking everybody, but she had been lending money to a small group of people for as long as I could remember. She charged them less interest than the bank would, but in truth, I knew it had nothing to do with money. Her brownstone in New Haven had sold for a mint and with the small pension she received from my grandfather’s former employer, Meme had it made. I suspected my grandmother got a kick out of being a loan shark, and if she ended up helping a few families out, so much the better.
    “You stay in the car, honey. These are proud people and I don’t like putting their hard times on display.”
    I watched Meme heave herself out of my small car and walk up a recently shoveled path. The house looked old, but it had a clean feel to it. A welcome mat by the door and nice curtains in the windows gave it a homey feeling.
    The door opened and a short, dark-haired man holding a toddler ushered Meme in with a smile. Painted across the back chrome fender of the car in the driveway was Billy Chance - Detailer in hot pink lettering. Five minutes later the door opened again and Meme and the man came down the path.
    “Billy, this is my granddaughter, Alex. She’s helping out till Theresa’s foot is better.”
    “Hi.” Billy reached across the passenger seat and shook my hand giving me a shy smile and then helped Meme into the car. “Give Theresa my best. Have a good Christmas, Mrs. Redmond.” He nodded again at me and shut the door.
    When Meme buckled in I nodded in the direction of Billy’s car. “I wouldn’t put that shy young man together with that blazing sign.” I put my car in gear and pulled away from the curb.
    “A real wiseacre. A James Dean wannabe. Got in a bit of trouble but I knew his family and they raised him right. I offered to help a few years ago and he’s been paying every week without fail. Sometimes people just need someone to believe in them.”
    “Does the government know about you? They could use someone like you down at the welfare office.”
    “And sometimes people are killers,” Meme said solemnly, catching me off guard. “Someone killed Mrs. Scott and you need to find out who. And if it’s got nothing to do with the factory then we got a bigger problem on our hands.”
    I eyed my grandmother and realized this murder bothered Meme more than she let on. Maybe it even scared her. “Who’s next on your list?” I asked, trying to put the murder out of Meme’s mind.
    “One more but the neighborhood ain’t so good. I’ll go during the day. Fred can take me.”
    I jammed on the brakes. A cough drop popped out of my mouth and hit the windshield. “Viagra Fred?”
    “You give him one of those pills and he really comes to life. He can look real mean when he has to.”
    I made a right at