Софи Райан - No Escape Claws

“So what do I owe you, anyway?” I asked.

He named an amount that was way too low.

“C’mon, that can’t be right,” I said. “What about all the time you and Nick put in on this?”

“We’re going to put that on your tab,” he said, a teasing gleam in his eyes.

“In other words I’m going to owe the two of you. You’re going to get as much mileage as you can out of me owing each of you a favor.”

“That’s the plan,” he said with a grin.

I grabbed the collar of his flannel shirt, catching him by surprise. I pulled him sideways and gave him a noogie on the top of his head, just as Rose came by on her way to the garage—or somewhere.

“Sarah, dear, don’t do that,” she said. “You’re making a mess all over the floor.”

“Why do I put up with you?” I hissed at Liam, who wasn’t even trying to hide his grin. I didn’t need to whisper. Rose was already gone.

“Because I’m your brother and you love me,” he said, pulling away from me and putting one hand dramatically over his heart.

I nodded. “Yeah, I do, even though sometimes you drive me crazy.” I smiled. “And I really like how you’re not making a big deal over that bald spot.”

He put a hand on top of his head, frowning. “What bald spot? I don’t have a bald spot. You’re just screwing with me, right?” He looked around the workroom for a mirror.

“I’m going to go get the vacuum cleaner,” I said, gesturing in the direction of the shop. I started for the door then looked over my shoulder. Liam was trying to check out the top of his head in the shiny surface of a huge lobster pot.

“Gotcha!” I whispered.

Mr. P. was just coming down the stairs and Avery was at the cash desk, shining part of our collection of mismatched spoons with a soft cloth, bouncing up slightly on her toes as she worked. She glanced over at Alfred, then her eyes flicked to me. She seemed to be a ball of barely contained energy, which I knew meant something was up.

I walked over to join her.

“Hey, Sarah, do you want me to vacuum or finish these first?” she asked.

“Finish what you’re doing,” I said. “I’ll get the vacuum out.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

It seemed to me that I could almost feel the energy radiating off of her. “Avery, is there anything you want to share with me?” I asked.

Her gaze immediately darted to Mr. P., who had just joined us. I leaned to one side, folded my arms over my chest and raised a quizzical eyebrow at him.

A hint of a smile flickered across the old man’s face. “I hope it wasn’t presumptuous of us, Sarah. Avery and I have been doing a little digging into the history of your casket.”

He didn’t need to tell me that they’d discovered something. I could tell that from Avery’s fidgeting. “So what did you find out?” I said.

“Avery did most of the digging,” Mr. P. said, smiling at the teen. He gestured at me. “Tell Sarah what you learned.”

Avery set down the spoon and the cloth she’d been using and propped her elbows on the counter. “Okay, first of all we tried to find the guy who rented that storage unit and then skipped on the bill, but he’s gone.” She made a fluttering gesture with one hand. “He blew off some other people too, and—”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mr. P. narrow his gaze at her.

Avery stopped and shook her head. “And you probably don’t care about that stuff.” She brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “So anyway, we talked to a bunch of people and finally we talked to the guy’s mother and it turns out that he was just storing the coffin for another guy he knows.”

“Do you know who built it?” I asked.

“Uh, yeah, the guy he was keeping it for.” She frowned at me as though that should have been obvious.

“Do you know why it was built?”

Mr. P. cleared his throat. I looked at him. “I’m afraid this is going to sound like the punch line to a bad joke, but it turns out that coffin was built for the carpenter’s mother-in-law.”

I shook my head. I’d been hoping for a more heartwarming story. “He disliked her that much?”

I knew there were people who loathed their in-laws but it hadn’t been my experience. My grandmother had technically stopped being my mom’s mother-in-law when my father died and several years later Mom married my stepfather, Peter. But Gram had embraced the new family members. She was Liam’s grandmother as much as mine. She’d been the one who’d taken him out to practice driving when everyone else’s patience was fried, and taught him how to tie a necktie. Then again, there weren’t a lot of people like Gram. It struck me that she was practical enough to appreciate a casket as a gift.

“Ms. Hall says she’s cheap,” Avery said. Her eyes flicked to Mr. P. for a moment. “And cheap is the word she used, not frugal.”

“I remember,” Alfred said.

“She” had to mean the carpenter’s mother-in-law. I wasn’t exactly sure how Stella Hall—we had cleared out her late brother’s house—had slipped into the conversation. It had taken a turn that had gotten me lost. It was like talking with Rose. The last time we’d been cooking the topic had changed from Swedish meatballs to Steven Tyler and I still didn’t know how.

I held up both hands. “Hang on. What does Stella’s friend’s frugality have to do with the casket in my workroom?”

“I don’t think she’s Ms. Hall’s friend,” Avery said, wrinkling her nose at me. “She didn’t talk about her like they were friends. She held her mouth funny when she said ‘cheap.’”

The last comment was directed at Alfred.

“I have to concur with Avery,” he said. “There was a little disdain in Stella’s manner when she spoke about the woman.”

Rose was definitely rubbing off on both Avery and Mr. P.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, so this woman is not Stella Hall’s friend and she is tight with money.” I circled one hand in the air in a let’s-get-on-with-it motion. “And?”

Avery picked up her cloth again. “And so she was supposed to be dying and because she’s cheap she didn’t like the idea of a lot of money going for her funeral so her son-in-law made her that coffin and then before he could give it to her it turned out she wasn’t dying after all—and she really wasn’t, cause she’s still alive—and so he couldn’t give it to her because she might take it the wrong way so he got his friend to keep it for him and Mr. P. talked to the dude and he doesn’t want anything to do with it.” She finally took a breath and smiled at me as she reached for a spoon.

None of the scenarios I’d come up with for how the wooden casket had ended up in that storage unit were anywhere near that mundane. I felt a little bit disappointed. “Well, at least we won’t be selling anyone’s family heirloom,” I said.

“You know, I’ve always fancied the idea of having some of my ashes launched into space,” Mr. P. confided.

“There’s a place in England where you can do that.” Avery frowned at the back of the spoon she was holding. “They use a hydrogen balloon. Your ashes would be up in the stratosphere. You could even make it out into space.”

“That would be remarkable,” Mr. P. said.

The conversational train had jumped the track again. I thanked them both and headed for my office.

I drove home at the end of the day with just Elvis for company. Rose and Mr. P. “had plans.” They didn’t share what those plans were. Charlotte had left with Liz. I was going to pick up Gram and we were going to have supper at Charlotte’s. John had some kind of meeting. Elvis had been included in the dinner invitation at Charlotte’s.