Take a look at her and you would determine instantaneously, based on every fact and stereotype ever hurled at you in the name of female tutelage, that Teagan is one of those women who never fall off the diet wagon. It’s dry rice cakes and tofu for this woman.

  You would be partly right. The reason Teagan has never fallen off the diet wagon is that she has never been on it.

  I’ve heard her appetite described as robust. My mom used to say she was a human vacuum; she would suck down anything available. Since that charming phrase might have other connotations now that she is an adult, we will just say that the woman has an appetite on par with a teenaged boy.

  She ordered something called the Bricking Brewster. I guess they have a family member living in Brewster, Texas. That much was documented on the back of the menu. What wasn’t documented was why they made such a big deal about this particular relative. They didn’t say he was a celebrity or anything. I’d never heard of him. The only thing that I could surmise from the information at hand was that he has a fondness for large dinner plates filled to capacity.

  Teagan’s order, the Bricking Brewster, is a huge slab of beef, with butter and seasonings on top, with about a pound of mashed potatoes and some veggies.

  The look on A.J.’s face was priceless. He couldn’t have choked down that amount of food in a week, but for my sister, it’s not even a challenge. She won’t even share. Nor will she gain an ounce; nor will she apologize for having a great appetite.

  I asked her once what will happen if her metabolism slows down, and a dinner plate that full starts to show itself on her hips, or thighs, or whatever. She laughed! She said as long as she’s healthy, she didn’t care. People with perfect bodies can think that way. It’s so aggravating.

  A.J. ordered a much smaller steak and a baked potato, dry.

  Yuck!

  I had my usual chicken tenders and fries.

  We did the chitchat thing until the food came. It was somewhat entertaining to watch the two of them size each other up.

  By the time our server showed up with our meals, we had ascertained that Teagan is smart and has a great sense of humor.

  We also knew that A.J. is single, not really looking, but not really not looking, and established in his career. I thought about it, and being established is a good thing; it means he has time to woo my sister.

  My sister was elbow-deep in dinner when A.J. mentioned that he has a talent or two that I can use. My ding-a-ling brat sister didn’t even say anything; she just kept filling her face. What good is she to me? It isn’t like I could use my feminine wiles on the man since it’s pretty obvious to me he is into my sister. All I could do was make a mental note.

  Two mental notes actually.

  First, find out just how A.J.’s hobby of all things computer can be of use to me.

  Second, smack my sister.

  My question of the night, could he help us find the murderer? If I worked it right, in the name of impressing my sister, he would lead me where I needed to go. Straight to the reward.

  I love it when things work out the way that God intends them. Didn’t I tell my sister that I had a plan? Didn’t I tell her that all I needed was to borrow her for a little while to charm some guy into helping us get the information that we need to figure this whole thing out?

  Ok, so maybe the guy I need her to impress was in my apartment, not the police department, but I was close. Apartment, department, really, that’s pretty close. The fact remains, that this is going to work out for me, and when push comes to shove, and it always does, that’s what’s important.

  NINE

  “SO, WHAT’D HE say?”

  I shot up off my bed as if I’d been caught playing doctor with Joey Pinkerten. Again. We didn’t actually play doctor. It was more like he was the doctor and I was the nurse and we were gonna find some other kids to play, but then his mom caught on, and instead of playing doctor, we got to write sentences about the mistake we’d almost made.

  His mom insisted that being curious was ok. Curious just means that you want to learn something. Learning is always a good thing. What we needed to learn from this particular situation was that if you feel the need to hide something, then it is something you shouldn’t be doing. If we were willing to play doctor, in front of our parents, then we didn’t have to write sentences.

  We got writer’s cramp.

  Teagan shook me back to present day, my heart still racing.

  Still a little breathless I said, “What the hell are you doing in my apartment? How did you get in?”

  “The key.”

  “Where the hell did you get a key?”

  “Mom gave me the emergency key.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  Eye roll. “I told her it was an emergency.”

  “What’s the emergency?”

  “I need to talk to you. I had some ideas about the reward search.”

  “I’m a lot of things, Teagan, but stupid is not on the list. What is going on with you? Why are you here? Why are you here so early? And why the hell do you have Mom’s key?”

  She just smiled and said, “I’m off to fix a cup a tea then. Get yourself out of bed, and for the sake of all the saints in heaven, put some clothes on. Cara, no one, especially not your sister, should have to see that in the morning. Do you really have to sleep naked?”

  I pulled the sheet up and said, “No one else complains.”

  “No one else sees you.”

  “That was unkind. True, but unkind.”

  I got to the kitchen just as the kettle was getting to a fine start. I grabbed two mugs and two tea bags and went about making each of us a cup of tea in a thoroughly untraditional and practically sinful way. I rummaged around in the fridge for a while, but all I could find worth interest was a bag of Oreos and some bread.

  We opted for the Oreos, each taking three, just like we did when we were little kids.

  With the proper blend of caffeine and sugar rushing through my veins, I was thinking a little more clearly.

  I looked Teagan in the eyes and said, rather calmly, considering, “Let’s start over. What are you doing here?”

  “I told you, I came to help you collect that reward money.”

  “You, my dear sister, lie like a cheap rug.” I munched on an Oreo as the penny dropped. “I get it; you’re here to see A.J.”

  “No, he said he was leaving early this morning, and I figured he’d be gone.”

  I swallowed. “Good point.”

  “Why are you so suspicious?”

  “Because I know you, Teagan Shannon. You weren’t very excited about helping me solve the murder yesterday. Then you meet A.J. Now you’re running over to Mom and Daddy’s to collect the key and let yourself in, at the butt crack of dawn, on a day in the middle of your vacation. What the hell did you tell them, anyway? Is Mom going to drop by? Because I swear on all that’s holy, if you have set me up for a series of unannounced Mom visits, I’m gonna put a hex on you the likes of which has not been seen in several centuries.”

  “Jeez, I’ve not made hash of your life, Cara. Do you really think I’d set Mom on you? Besides the fact that with one less daughter I’d be all the more handy a target. Think, if Mom were to come here, she would find A.J. If that were to happen, neither your life, nor mine, would be much fun for a while.”

  “Then I don’t get it. Why the key?”

  She said not a word, but gave me a brilliant smile. The same smile she gave me back in fourth grade when she found out that I’d shared a cigarette with Sandy in the backyard, and she knew she had massive control over all of my actions for the rest of my life.

  It dawned on me slowly. I was flummoxed no more. I smiled and said, “Ok, I get it. If you have the key, Mom doesn’t have the key. And if Mom doesn’t have the key, she can’t show up here unannounced and catch you with A.J.”

  “I’m in the wick! Are you kidding? I haven’t even gone out on a first date with the man, and you have us in a little house with a picket fence. What else? Four kids and a Great Dane?”

  “A Great Dane? Where did that come from? An Irish wolfhound maybe. A mastiff perhaps. I could even go for a puggle, but a Great Dane?”

  “Great Danes are great dogs. It’s even part of their name. I’ve always wanted one.”

  “Really? I seem to remember you saying, just a week or two ago, that if God had intended for you to have an animal, he’d introduce you to a rock star. Remember, you said a rock star is all the animal you can handle, but that you’d love to handle one. You said it right in front of that lady in line at the deli, and I thought for a minute that we were going to have to call for help. She looked like she was going to faint, and then she burst out laughing, and I thought her teeth were going to fall out. Remember that?”

  “That was your fault.”

  “Mine? Teagan, how was that my fault?”

  “Because you were talking about getting a white China hooded rat. We both know if you needed a babysitter for that creature, it would be me. I don’t want to look into the beady little eyes of a rodent.”

  “Then don’t turn around.”

  She jumped out of her chair with such a start I thought she’d upset the whole table. She’d glanced over her shoulder and caught a look at my latest addition. He’s a tiny little thing. I think he looks like he is somewhere between a church mouse and a field mouse.

  The difference being, of course, a church mouse has slightly longer arms, so he can fold his hands in prayer, and tiny little calluses on his knees.

  Teagan screeched, “Jesus Christ, Cara. You almost killed me. Sweet Mother of God, what is that?”

  It’s funny how Irish we sound when we panic. Holdover from childhood, I’m sure. I calmly responded, “That is Catnip. He’s my new pet.”

  Her eyes were huge. “Is he real?”

  “If he is, he’s damn good at holding still! What do you mean is he real? Of course he isn’t real.”

  “Why do you have a fake rat?”

  “He isn’t a rat; he’s a mouse.”

  “Fine, why do you have a fake mouse?”

  I smiled my very bestest big sister smile. “He’s the perfect alternative. When you have a completely self-centered sister who won’t help you care for a loved creature of God, you have to do what you can. This is what I can do.”

  “Only you would stuff a mouse, Cara!”

  “You’re such a sick woman. I didn’t stuff a mouse. He’s made out of mohair, an old pair of pantyhose, some glass beads, and other stuff.”

  She leaned in for a closer look and said, “What did you make his hands out of? They look real.”

  “I didn’t make him, I bought him, but looking at his hands I can only think of two things. Either chicken feet or she pulled them off a real mouse.”

  Teagan stood there staring at Catnip in horror.

  I had to laugh. “For such a smart woman, I worry about you some times. His feet are made out of that polymer clay stuff. She pushes the right color clay through a little extruder. It isn’t rocket science, Teagan. Get a grip.”

  “Me get a grip? You have a stuffed rat in your kitchen.”

  “He isn’t a rat, he’s a mouse, and his name is Catnip. Show some respect.”

  She burst out laughing. Really, what else could she do?

  “My God, Cara, you’ve lost the plot. Really. There is a fine line between eccentric and insane. Just which side of that line are you leanin’ toward? Maybe Mom does have reason to worry.”

  I pulled apart my Oreo and said, “I haven’t lost the plot, you dink. That’s a birthday present for Seamus. What little boy wouldn’t want to have a stuffed mouse to impress his friends and gross out his mother?”

  “You know you’ll pay for all these weird gifts you give the kids. Cara, sooner or later you will have children of your own, and when you do, all those gifts are going to come back and haunt you.”

  “Actually, I’ve told everybody in confidence that they are all from you. Told ‘em you’re too girly. Didn’t want to ruin your reputation with the kids. All those gifts, all these years, they’re all gonna come back and haunt you.”

  “Oh lovely.”

  “Can we get on with it then?”

  She gifted me with one of her eye rolls. “Talking to you about anything is about as useful as a lighthouse in a bog, but I’m willing to give it a try.”

  We’d just sat down to come up with something completely brilliant when Teagan’s phone rang. Some calamity at the office. She had to go home to find the answer in paperwork.

  I was left to my own devices.

  I took a nap.

  TEN

  TEAGAN USED THE emergency key and walked into my apartment unannounced. I’d have to nip this rather irritating habit in the bud quick.

  I smiled at my sister and said sweetly, “Mom called.”

  “When?”

  “About twenty minutes ago. She’s looking for you. I’m pretty sure you’re in really big trouble. What did you do?”

  She looked confused. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “That didn’t work in third grade, and it isn’t gonna work now.”

  “Cara, may I remind you that I really didn’t do anything in third grade? That was you and Liam.”

  “Did saying that save your butt then?”

  “No, Mom believed you.”

  “She’s gonna believe me this time, too. I’m her favorite.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “True enough, but you can’t talk your way into or out of anything. You have no gift for gab. You could kiss the Blarney Stone ’til it asked for your hand in marriage, and still, you couldn’t talk your way out of a paper bag.”

  “Your point?”

  “You, my dear sister, may have been blessed with a body from heaven and a mind any professor would envy, but I was not only stricken with the hairy toe gene, I also inherited Uncle Bud’s gift of gab. I can talk my way in or out of anything. Not an issue for me.”

  “Cara, you just bragged that you’re a liar.”

  “You aren’t listening. I’m not a liar. I don’t have to lie.”

  Teagan rolled her eyes. “Oh, here we go. Teach me, oh wise ass, I mean wise woman.”

  “It’s an old joke, Teagan. You run into a high school friend that has an unattractive child in tow. What do you say about the kid? You look the mother square in the eye and say, ‘For the life of me I just can’t decide who she favors more, you or her father. You must be thrilled with her.’ It’s an honest comment, and you can say it with conviction.”

  She smiled brightly and said, “Is that what they told Mom about you?”

  “No, they told Mom not to worry, that some day she would have another daughter who would make even me look good. That’s what happened when you came along.”

  She shook her head and said, “You really are quick.”

  We each pulled the face we always pulled when we were young and had to make up after a tiff. Mom was always quick to point out that friends come and go, but you’re stuck with your sister ’til you die, so you’d better learn to get along.

  Me, being the older and more mature sister, said, “Can we start this now?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Good, ’cause Mom is calling back later. We’ll know soon enough what she has planned.”

  Teagan pulled up a dining room chair and sat with a perfectly straight back, a habit we both formed in stepdancing class, at about the age of five, and said, “We left off trying to decide if we should go for the reward money for the murder of that Rosenbloom woman, or if we should go ahead and find some other reward to hone in on.”

  “It’s home in on, not hone in on. Rumor has it Bush started the hone in thing; you don’t want to go there.”

  “True.”

  I scooted my chair closer. “I’m no longer waffling. I think we can make the original plan work. As you might recall, I actually talked to the magnificent Mr. A.J. while you were sucking down dinner.”

  “He is pretty magnificent, isn’t he?”

  “We’re staying on topic here.”

  She nodded once. “Got it.”

  “So, while you were doin’ the Hoover thing with your mondo-dinner, I was actually listening to what A.J. had to say.”

  “That isn’t fair. I listened.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Really.”

  I raised my eyebrows and lowered my chin in challenge. “Then what did we talk about that will lead us right to the murderer of Mrs. Lily Ivy-Rosenbloom?”

  “Ok, so maybe I wasn’t listening every second, but be fair, no one listens to you every second.”

  “I understand that.”

  She brightened. “So, what’s going on?”

  “A.J. is a computer genius.”

  Her turn to look impressed. “A computer genius?”

  “Yep.”

  “He said that? That’s kind of conceited. That doesn’t sound like A.J.”

  “He didn’t say the genius part, I did.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said that computers are kind of a hobby with him.”

  Her face shifted from impressed to puzzled. “How does that make him a genius?”

  “Have you ever seen a guy who looks that good in linen pants, without even trying, and can deal with not just one of us, but both of us, and at the same time? The man has got to be a genius.”

  “Good point.” She said, “So how does A.J. being a computer genius lead us straight to the murderer of Mrs. Ivy-Rosenbloom?”

  “You just don’t listen to a word I say.”

  “That’s pretty much true.”

  I yelped, “Don’t be a jerk. The answer is on the Internet. We’ve come full circle here. All we have to do is input the right information so that the output tells us what we need to know so that we can figure out who the murderer is. Then we can collect the reward in a timely fashion. I’m thinking if we find out the murderer is not the husband, then he will be more than happy to share some of his vast wealth with us in return for that information. If I play my cards right, I could end up with more than just the reward money.”