Junkyard Man Read online

  His eyebrows shot up. “How did you make the leap from ‘talking to’ to ‘buying a bunch of crap from’?”

  I raised my hands. “I don’t know. He was telling me about his grandmother’s china collection, and how he used to repair appliances for a living, and next thing I knew I was committing to buy a toaster from him. And he looked so darned happy that next thing I knew, I was buying a mixer, too.”

  Judge Beck looked down into the box and pulled another folder out. “Now that I know your weakness, I’ll be sure to keep all the Girl Scouts from your door. And those college kids selling knife sets.”

  I remembered all the wrapping paper in the attic and thought that perhaps he wasn’t too far off in his estimation of my ability to resist an emotion-based sales pitch. Or lack thereof.

  “See if I ever share my Thin Mints with you, Buster.” I grabbed my laptop out of my bag. “I’m heading up. Turn off the coffee pot when you’re done?”

  He nodded, and I left him, still pulling folders from the box, to go upstairs to my room. Ten o’clock was a bit early for me to retire, but with the judge ensconced in my dining room, I felt the need to curl up in my pajamas, under the covers, and check a few things on my laptop, maybe even watch some cat videos. As if he read my thoughts, Taco raced past me on the stairs, tearing at full speed into my room and leaping on the bed so he was sure to score his favored spot.

  I got ready for bed and crawled under the covers, feeling incredibly content. Taco moved up to my side, butting his head against my arm. I petted him, opening up my laptop one-handed and typing a few things into the search engine.

  According to the wisdom of the internet, it was very difficult to force someone out of their home and into assisted living. It seemed that it took a judge’s order, and that the law was reluctant to take away an individual’s right to live as they so chose unless they posed a danger to themselves or to others. And that was danger as in a fear of grievous harm or death. An aunt with mobility issues couldn’t be forced out of her home because her family was afraid that she was going to fall down her stairs, even if she’d done so before. It would take continuous falls within a short window of time, in which she’d been unable to contact anyone for help for an unacceptable amount of time to even give a judge a moment’s pause. There needed to be a pattern, a repetition of behavior. Anyone could accidently leave a pot on the stove and cause a minor fire, but that, plus flooding the basement, plus backing the car through the garage door, plus forgetting medication, plus not showering for two weeks might, and I mean might, rise to the level of involuntary commitment. Based on what I’d seen of Mr. Peter, this would not be a course of action that would yield the nephew’s desired results.

  As for Will Lars, I didn’t think he had any better chance of getting the house condemned or Mr. Peter evicted. If my neighbor had been renting, it might have been easier as a landlord would be able to show violation of the lease, or just end the lease at the end of the term under pressure from neighborhood complaints. But since Mr. Peter owned the property and had for longer than I’d lived here, the only way to get him out would be structural issues in the property that created an unsafe place to live either for him, or for the adjacent properties. And that just wasn’t the case. As I’d told J.T., the city officials were likely to cite him on a few codes, then drag out enforcement forever. The worst I could see was the narrow passages which would make it difficult for the fire department to attempt a rescue, or to get control of any sort of blaze. In my experience, the city would issue a list of basic improvements, Mr. Peter would eventually perform them, then all would be fine. And there would still be washing machines in the front lawn and stacks of boxes and dinnerware strewn throughout the house.

  At midnight, I snapped the laptop shut and yawned, sitting it on the bedside table. There was a cold drafty area on that side of the bed, and out of the corner of my eye I saw that old familiar shadow; only this time he sat on the edge of the bed, as if he wasn’t sure if he was welcome or not.

  “I’m going to sleep,” I told the shadow. “Don’t wake Taco, and don’t put your cold feet on me.”

  I turned off the light, not sure if the shadow stayed or left, if he climbed in beside me or continued to perch on the edge of the bed. He wasn’t welcome under the covers. Nobody was. It had been ten years since someone had shared my bed, and right now, I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone but Taco curled up in the blankets with me.

  Chapter 6

  I came downstairs Saturday morning to find all the folders back in the box, which was now in a corner beside the dining room table. The smell of coffee filled the air, and when I walked into the kitchen I saw a box of donuts on the island counter. From the thumping noises over my head, the kids were up and running around.

  Practice. Game. Judge Beck had stashed a few cases of soda in the kitchen to throw into a cooler for the kids, and a note on the fridge told me he’d already arranged for pizza delivery, and that several bags of chips were in the pantry. I stole a cruller from the donut box and started pulling ingredients out of the cabinet, prepping to make a cake. If I hustled, it could be cooling on the counter by the time I left for my ten o’clock ophthalmologist appointment.

  Although cooling anything on the counter probably wasn’t a good idea, I thought as Taco sat at my feet meowing insistently. I couldn’t let him outside, and the moment those cakes were unattended, he’d be up on the counter, stuffing his whiskered little face.

  Hmmm. I couldn’t cool them in the fridge, or in the still-hot oven. Maybe I could throw some tea towels over them and put them in the wine cellar downstairs. It had a door to keep Taco out. I’d just have to remember that I’d put them there in time for the party. It would be frustrating to go through all this effort only to discover hard, moldy cakes in the wine cellar two weeks from now.

  I was taking stock of my ingredients when a herd of elephants came down the stairs.

  “I want to feed Taco!” Madison announced, skidding into the kitchen and flipping the lid open on the donut box. “Hey, who ate one?”

  “I did. Landlord tax,” I told her. “And it’s Henry’s turn to feed Taco.”

  The boy reached over his sister’s shoulder, grabbing a glazed with chocolate icing and sprinkles and sticking his tongue out at his sister.

  “Mature,” she commented, taking a Boston cream.

  Henry stuffed the donut in his mouth and held it there as he pulled out the Happy Cat and carefully measured the amount for Taco’s breakfast as the cat pounced on the bowl. Henry was much better at following Taco’s dietary restrictions, where Madison tended to top off the measuring cup a bit. The cat had his head in the bowl before Henry was done pouring.

  “What kind of cake do you and the girls want for tonight?” I asked Madison.

  She eyed the ingredients on the counter. “Nothing too melty. A pound cake maybe? Can we use those cranberries in the freezer?”

  The ones I liked to plop in my wine? Not that Madison knew about that. I’d expected a request for chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. “Really? Cranberry pound cake?”

  She nodded, swiping the custard out of the center of her donut with a finger. “I like pound cakes. And I like cranberries.”

  I got to thinking. “Cranberry orange? I can make a vanilla glaze to give it a bit of sweetness.”

  “And walnuts? For some crunch?”

  An idea was stirring in my mind, and it didn’t have much to do with tonight’s party. “Do you like to cook, Madison?”

  She laughed. “I burn water. I’d rather buy takeout than cook, but I always like baking cookies at Christmas time, and I like to make cakes. I’ve always used the box mixes, though.”

  “There are some good box cakes out there,” I told her, “but if you want, we can have a cake baking day sometime soon. I’ve got lots of recipe books, including a bunch from when I was a kid. We’ll pick something out and I’ll supervise while you make it.”

  She grinned, the chocolate on her mouth makin
g her seem younger than fifteen. “Dad’s birthday is in June. I want to make him a birthday cake.”

  Perfect. “You start looking at recipes, pick one out, and write down the ingredients that we need. I’m sure your dad would love it.”

  “Love what?” Judge Beck walked in and eyed the donut box. “Hey, who ate my cruller?”

  Oops.

  “Never mind.” He grabbed the box in one hand and a go-cup of coffee with the other. “We’ve got to roll or we’ll be late. Henry, is your stuff loaded in the car?”

  “Yep!”

  “Madison?”

  The girl sighed. “For the millionth time, yes. Bye, Miss Kay. Thank you!”

  I waved the three of them off, shouting a quick warning not to let Taco slip out the door, then went back to my ingredients. Walnuts. An orange. Cranberries. Flour. Salt, baking powder, sugar, butter, eggs, and milk. Vanilla extract. I tapped a finger to my lip, then looked around to make sure the judge and the kids were gone before I pulled a little bottle of Grand Marnier out of the cabinet. The alcohol would cook off, and it would give the pound cake an added orangey flavor.

  Honestly, this wasn’t much more trouble than a box cake, and it would taste a whole lot better. I peeled and zested the orange, then stuck the sections in a saucepan to boil. Once they were cooking, I chopped the nuts and added cranberries to the cooking orange sections. Then I beat the butter and sugar, adding the eggs, booze, and vanilla when it was smooth and creamy. That done, I added flour and milk, alternating while the mixer worked its magic. Then I folded in the cooked fruit and chopped nuts and poured the batter into a greased and floured pan. While the pound cake cooked, I got my shower and dressed, then pulled it from the oven and barricaded it from the cat to let it cool for ten minutes. Just before I needed to leave, I inverted it onto a wire rack and draped a clean tea towel over it, carrying it down to the wine cellar to finish cooling.

  Taco followed me, determined to orchestrate a trip-and-fall that would result in the cake on the floor and in his belly, but I managed to foil his plans and get it safely out of cat-reach to cool.

  Next, there was a battle at the door to squeeze through without the cat escaping. Once outside, I was home free and on my way to the eye doctor, actually excited about this evening’s activities. Teenage girls. Pizza and chips. Soda and cake. Hot tub and lots of giggles and, no doubt, conversations about boys and school, college, and softball.

  How my life had changed in just three months. And I was loving every minute of it.

  Chapter 7

  “There’s nothing wrong, Kay.” Dr. Berkowitz wheeled his chair back and regarded me somberly. Today he had on a shirt with Yoda on the front. “You do have floaters”, he told me. “I can see the viscous fluid. They’re not to a level where I’d want to risk any sort of procedure to try to clear them.”

  He said this at each appointment. While I was relieved there wasn’t anything wrong with my eyesight, the other explanation wasn’t particularly comforting. I might have floaters, but the shadows weren’t anything like what the doctor had described. They looked and acted more like blurry, dark gray spirits. So what I was seeing wasn’t an ocular problem, it was a mental one. Or a paranormal one.

  “Dr. Berkowitz, do you believe in ghosts?” My next course of action might be to make an appointment for psychiatric counseling, but I felt the need to confide in someone who might have a different take on what I’d been experiencing.

  He eyed me with surprise. “Ghosts? Not really. I think sometimes we do feel a presence, but I’m not sure if that’s our minds trying to soothe us after a loss, or if a loved one truly stays behind to help ease us into life without them. But the haunted houses and all that? I truly believe those are just imaginations running wild.”

  I took a deep breath, steeling myself to admit something truly embarrassing. “These things I’m seeing aren’t floaters as you’re describing them. If there’s nothing wrong with my eyes, then these shadows are ghosts. There’s one that is around me every evening, and occasionally during the day, just walking beside me, or standing nearby. I can see him just out of the corner of my eye.”

  The doctor tilted his head, his face full of sympathy as he patted my shoulder. “Kay, you’ve lost your husband, the man you were with for nearly forty years. When someone is by your side for that long, I believe it’s normal for your mind to imagine him still there, nearby and doing the things he always did.”

  Maybe. And the shadow had become a comforting presence. But I didn’t want to think that my grief was holding Eli’s spirit here, or that his guilt over leaving me kept him from his afterlife. Maybe instead of a psychiatrist, I needed to go see Reverend Lincoln. Or join that grief group at the Baptist church.

  But it wasn’t just the evening ghost, the one that might be Eli, that I was seeing. I remembered the day I’d found Caryn Swanson’s body. I’d seen that shadow twice, and it had clearly been a different sort of experience than what I had when I was visited by my evening friend.

  “What if it’s not just grief?” I mused. “One of those shadows showed me where Caryn Swanson’s body was.”

  He patted my shoulder again, but now his expression was full of discomfort, as if he wanted to change the conversation back to medical stuff, or the weather. “That was probably a floater. It’s most likely a combination of floaters and your imagination due to grief. Maybe you should talk to someone.”

  He was right. And it was becoming clear that my ophthalmologist wasn’t the person I needed to seek help from in this issue. I thanked Dr. Berkowitz and headed out, swinging by the Farmer’s Market for fresh strawberries, then by a craft store to peruse their yarn selection. I hadn’t worked on the hat last night after our porch happy hour, but I’d have some time this afternoon, and I was determined to complete the project. My learn-to-knit kit had held enough yarn to make one baby hat, a scarf, and three washcloths. Admittedly, I’d made nine washcloths over the last three months because I’d needed to disassemble quite a few of them, including my first attempt which unraveled when I’d attempted to clean a dish with it. The scarf…well, the scarf wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that I wanted to wear in public. I was seriously considering tearing it apart and starting it over now that I’d learned a bit more about shaping and stitches.

  New yarn would energize me. It would jumpstart my creativity and rekindle the enthusiasm I’d had when I first bought the kit. Knitting the same thing over and over was tedious enough without having to use the exact same yarn for every project.

  Once inside, I lost myself in bulky single-ply, silky lace-weight, and fanciful yarn that had fuzzies and specks and something that resembled bird feathers. I walked out with a bag full of new yarns, not quite sure if I’d be able to use any of them to make either washcloths or baby hats. Although the bird-feather one would make a truly interesting scarf. How eccentric I’d look strutting around this fall sporting something that looked like a flamboyant turquoise boa.

  Once home, I had a wonderful afternoon, drizzling the vanilla glaze over the pound cake, finishing the baby hat, which actually did look like a baby hat, and watching a movie I’d recorded. An hour before Judge Beck was due to drop Madison and the girls off, I went back to the attic and dug up the old Christmas lights, hauling them outside to string around trees, the gazebo, the hot tub, and the fence.

  There’d been a time when these lights had surrounded every window and gable of our house. They’d stretched across the roofline, winding around the porch railing, outlining our house in tiny white dots every night from the day after Thanksgiving until New Years’. The first year Eli had attempted to hang them himself, quickly realizing that a surgeon probably shouldn’t be perched up on a ladder, trying to clip strands of lights onto the edge of the roof. I’d been so relieved when after the first strand had gone up, he’d admitted defeat and hired the guy who’d done our roof to take it on as a side job.

  They’d been up when Eli had his accident, just two days before New Year’s Eve. And altho
ugh Ralph had come by on January second to take them down, I’d told him not to. I’d always found it depressing to see our house shadowed and dark, the only illumination the porch light and the lamp in the bay window. I hated when we took the lights down, as if we were admitting defeat against the darkness of winter, giving in to the inevitable death that the cold nights of January symbolized. Going back and forth each day to the hospital, I’d watch over my husband who’d been so vibrant, so intelligent and alive just days before, and wonder if he would ever come out of the coma, if he’d live to see spring. When I’d pull in my driveway in the dark of night, feeling the icy fingers of winter wrap around me, the only thing that symbolized hope was those Christmas lights.

  The symbolism of death in removing the lights each year was easier to face with Eli by my side. That year I refused. And when the ambulance brought him home, and my husband was safely ensconced in the former study in a hospital bed, I asked Ralph to come by and take them down. I no longer needed those lights because Eli was home, and with hard work and time, he’d fully recover. I fully believed that by the time Ralph put those Christmas lights up again, Eli would be walking, driving to the hospital each day, telling me about his patients and what surgeries he had that week. I no longer needed those lights, because everything was going to be okay. I’d beat back the darkness. We’d fought death and won. The rest would be a piece of cake.

  The Christmas lights never went up again. And I quickly learned that you can fight death, but you never really win.

  The kids arrived at the same time as the pizza delivery man. They poured from Judge Beck’s SUV like jumping beans, hopping across the lawn, squealing and laughing and carrying little drawstring bags. I signed for the pizza and waved as an exhausted looking Judge Beck and a relieved Henry pulled away from the curb, heading to the next round of teenage sports.

  This pool party had been the easiest, most pleasant party I’d ever hosted. Madison’s friends were polite and courteous. After devouring pizza, chips, and soda, they helped clean up, then went inside to change, tearing out in a whirlwind of bikinis and long hair to climb into the hot tub. The sun was going down, so I flicked the lights on and was thrilled with their exclamations about how magical it all was.