Dutch chocolate 9, p.8
Dutch Chocolate 9, page 8
She smiled when she saw tiny knitted hats and matching mittens on colorful elastic suspenders. She noticed knitted booties with the same outdoor themes. There were handcrafted wooden toys, wooden whistles, wooden flutes and single drums. What also drew her eye were the landscapes and woodlands paintings and watercolor sketches of birds resting on small and medium-size easels.
“G-Ma, I didn’t know you were that talented,” Vita muttered to herself
“It’s not just her weaving skills. It’s a more of a family thing,” Linda responded.
Vita turned to eye Linda and Marsha. “What’s that mean?”
“We saw you drive up.”
“We wanted to say hello and invite you to lunch,” Marsha added. “I wanted say thanks. I understand you bumped into my former Administrative Assistant Alice Brewster.”
Vita nodded. “I did. I was grocery shopping and bumped into her and her fiancée Natalie, Viola’s Office Manager.”
Marsha grinned. “She said you convinced her to say yes to moving here with Natalie. I don’t know what you said to her that I didn’t. I’ve been working on her for a year plus to move up here.” She frowned. “Wait, you just said fiancée?”
Vita chuckled. “Oh yes. Their rings are so beautiful.”
“Damn! That’s another thing I missed. How did I miss that?”
“Now that you know, Marsha, be sure to make a big deal about the rings when you see them again.”
“I will.”
The three women grew quiet studying the display windows again.
“Has G-Ma ever thought about selling these items online? They are quite unique,” Vita asked.
“She’d have to get our permission too. I did some of the bird sketches and watercolors. Dutch did others. Ozzie did the cave paintings and woodland scenes,” Linda remarked.
“G-Ma did most of the weaving of the scarfs, blankets and shawls.” Marsha paused to eye Vita. “Ask me who did the knitting.”
Vita grinned. “Alright, I’ll play along. Who did the knitting?”
“Ange and Tony. They claim it helps them relax when they do surveillance jobs for Dutch and Viola.”
Vita couldn’t help the look of surprise flitting across her face. “You’re kidding!”
“Nope, I’m not,” Marsha remarked. “Lindy’s cousin Charlie created most of the toys and whistles from memory.”
“You two weren’t kidding. This store really is a family affair.” Vita studied the items again. “How difficult would it be to find buyers online? Do you all have stock?”
“I don’t know. I never thought to ask or look. We do it because we love it, not for the money, Vee. The money goes to our conservation classes and bear caves and tunnel classes,” Linda explained.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to contribute even more to those classes?” Vita asked.
Linda shrugged. “I hadn’t thought that much about it. However, I wouldn’t say no, not ‘til I hear a proposal anyway.”
Vita nodded. “I could work on it after I see the stock and figure out how long it takes to make each item. Then I’d know if going online is worth it, the difference between a hobby and a business.”
“There’s no rush on any this, Vee.”
“We enjoy doing all of it.”
“I believe I heard an offer of a free lunch,” Vita remarked.
Marsha looped Vita’s right arm and Linda looped her left one.
“That you did, Miss Vita Kane,” Marsha replied.
“Let’s go have lunch in one of our favorite spots,” Linda added.
Vita nodded then patted her belly. “I’m definitely hungry. Let’s go.”
A few days later, she and G-Ma were watching the children. Lottie had gone shopping with Bonita, although the way they were ignoring everybody to whisper sweet nothings to each and blush, she wondered if they were really going to one of the hotels or motels in the area to be alone. They watched the kids fidgeting as they napped.
“Why are they wiggling and jiggling? What you suppose their little minds think about while they sleep?” Vita asked, not really looking for an answer.
Rendie sat at the kitchen table listening to the adults talk as she often did then raised her hand while bouncing up and down in her chair. “Oh. Oh, I know. I know. I know.”
Vita chuckled. “You’re not in school yet, Sweetie. You don’t have to raise your hand. Just say whatever comes to mind, Rendie.”
“TJ and Griffin are thinking about doing more bad stuff then running away and hiding after they do it. The girls aren’t moving. They’re thinking good thoughts. The littler boys are trying to pretend they big so they can do bad stuff too,” Rendie said.
Vita caught G-Ma’s eyeroll and responded. “Give her another eleven or twelve years and she’ll be dating some wild child, teenage boy none of us like.”
G-Ma cackled. “Yep. Keep four eyes on her. All times.” She studied Vita. “You have babies too. Tanya help. Mama like grands. Help raise.”
“Humph! Old Woman, you keep saying that like it’s true.” Vita remembered how she discovered she liked Tanya’s mother when she met her at the hospital. That so strange for her. She never dated anybody long enough to meet relatives nor did she want to meet them either. She just sort of fell into meeting DC Maybelline Dodge, the very frank bossy woman used to spitting out orders and making people jump to complete them.
G-Ma pointed with two fingers of one hand to her eyes then to Vita. “You see. Have eyes on you too.”
“She’s all the way in the city, almost four hundred miles away. She’s an attractive young woman, with the emphasis on the younger part. She still has plenty of wild oats to sow.”
“Sow oats on way. You see. She come here for you.”
Vita waved a dismissive hand at G-Ma. “I already told you. It won’t happen.”
“My mommies say G-Ma tell fairy tales just like in the books they read to me cuz I can’t read so good yet.”
Vita patted Rendie’s hand. “Your mommies are exactly right. Your great-grandmother loves fairy tales where the two princesses meet and fall in love. They get married. They have plenty of babies. And everybody lives happily ever after.” She sighed. “I hate to disappoint you, Rendie, but your mommies are right. In real life, women meet. Women date. They discover they don’t like each other. They never see each other again. That’s the end of the story.”
Rendie sighed. “That don’t sound happy, Miss Vita. I like happy stories better.”
“Me too,” G-Ma added.
Vita looked at the two females seated at the kitchen table next to her and groaned. “I like realistic ones better.”
Nine: On the way to Wickwire. I got a dog!
From a wheelchair Methodist Hospital prescribed for her to get around, Deputy Commissioner Dodge eyed her daughter Tanya, then studied her daughter’s trainer, Detective Mary Bethune Collins. “Daughter, I believe the night you fainted in the ICU after seeing my injuries.” She rubbed her temples then closed her eyes, remembering that night. “Detective Collins was there too. I heard crazy things that night. I’m not sure they were real. I was pretty drugged up. I remember Vita Kane gave me ice chips to suck.” She smiled. “She said, and I quote, ‘Now, I know what you’d look like in twenty or thirty years.’ She meant you would look like me, now.”
MB worried either woman might question her more intently about Vita. They might ask where Vita went and why.
“Detective Collins, you seem nervous about something.”
MB rubbed her belly. “I’m just hungry, Deputy Commissioner Dodge. I’m supposed to bring home dinner tonight. My girlfriend didn’t say what she wanted for dinner.”
“My spies tell me you spend more time at her tailor shop than your own place. I sincerely doubt if you’re worried about bringing the wrong dinner meal home, Detective Collins. It’s something else.” DC Dodge paused to study the detective again. “I’m wondering what else you might have discussed with Vita when you two thought I was asleep.”
“And I’m wondering if she told you where she went, Ma’am,” Tanya remarked in a hopeful voice as she studied MB too.
“Why in god’s name would she do that?”
“She’d want somebody to know where she went. Maybe even check on her to make sure she arrived there in one piece,” DC Dodge remarked. “I think that somebody is you, Detective Collins. You are the perfect candidate. You get to keep an eye on my daughter and keep her safe. And you’re touch in with the woman who’d want to know that.”
“Where is she, Ma’am? I need to know,” Tanya practically begged. She had to know where Vita Kane disappeared to.
MB groaned loudly. Here it comes. “I promised her I wouldn’t tell you. She made me promise. She doesn’t want to be found for a while.”
“Why?”
MB shrugged then turned to look at her subordinate. “You scare her, Rookie. She was going to use you to get ahead in the department. Then she met you. She liked you.” She exhaled. “I think she’s worried you might be the one ... that special woman. She doesn’t think it’ll work between you two. She thinks she’s too old and you’re too young.”
“So, she ran away?” Tanya whined plaintively.
“That’s what you do when you’re scared of something or someone, Rookie. Most of us aren’t like you, running into danger instead of away from it.”
“Fuck that hero shit, Collins! Just tell me where she went,” Tanya demanded, confronting her trainer while standing inches away from her with a raised fist.
“You stop that this instant, Tanya Colby Dodge!” Deputy Commissioner Dodge wheeled quickly over to the two women who were squaring off to fist fight. When they continued to ignore her presence, she deliberately ran over toes of each woman, making them jump away from each other in pain. “Do I have your attention now, ladies!” the commissioner growled, shooting daggers at each woman.
MB rubbed her big toe while watching the rookie do the same. “Yes, Ma’am, you got mine.”
“Tanya?”
Tanya scowled at her mother, who gave her a withering glance in return.
“Better answer her, Rookie. We only have good nine toes left. She could hurt them all with that thing she’s sitting in.”
“Shut up, Collins! And quit calling me Rookie. I got a name, same as you.”
MB grinned broadly. “Finally, she speaks sense. The detective finally says something I’ve been waiting to hear.”
“Tell me, Collins,” Tanya demanded again.
“I can’t. Ask your mother. She doesn’t know what she knows.”
“I don’t know what I know?” Deputy Commissioner Dodge frowned as she repeated Detective Collins’ words. “This name I keep hearing in my head. Wickwire or Wirewick; what is that?”
Tanya pulled out her cellphone and Googled. “It’s Wickwire, New York, Mom. A small farming town in upstate New York. She went there, didn’t she, Collins?”
“And I stuck to my word. I didn’t tell you anything.”
“I’m going there to find her. Don’t either of you try to stop me,” Tanya warned.
“I think you ought to wait until she returns to the city, Detective Dodge. Help me and my partner finish the Moby Dick case.”
“Ha! That case is a real loser! You yourself said how it’s been an ongoing problem in the department for years. Plenty of witnesses, but none of them wants to testify in court. I’m requesting a leave of absence, then I’m going upstate to find her.”
Deputy Commissioner Dodge studied Detective MB Collins’ face. Unless she was reading the detective wrong, she agreed with her daughter’s foolishness. “You don’t give up a valuable, stable career to go searching for a woman who might not love you, Tiny Tee. Go home and think about it. Or stay here with me. We can have dinner and talk.”
MB limped to the door. “I’ll leave you two to decide what you want to do. Rookie, I mean, Tanya, if you decide to find her, put in your request for tomorrow. Don’t just leave and not show for work tomorrow. I’m sure your mother can tell you about burning down bridges you might need later. Ask your mother, and for Pete’s sake, listen when she tells you, huh?” She cleared her throat. “Deputy Commissioner Dodge, I’d like to hear from you on other matters. If you catch my drift.”
Deputy Commissioner Dodge nodded. “I understand perfectly, Detective Collins.” She watched the tall, pregnant policewoman leave as quietly as she arrived.
That conversation was back then. It took place months ago. Tanya finished several cases with her trainers Detective MB Collins and Detective Ross Hayes. She was gathering the courage to go find Vita Kane. That was what took months to do it. She kept worrying what would happen when she found Vita. She did some personnel snooping and discovered Vita had several years of vacation time coming. Vita could stay out for eighteen months easily and even longer, up to three years plus. Suppose Vita wouldn’t come back to the city right away? Suppose she’d been upstate so long that she was beginning to enjoy the quiet and the farmyard animals too? Her Google search mentioned farmlands and farm animals like chickens, pigs, cows, goats, sheep and the horses. Did Vita like that kind of thing?
Detective Collins hadn’t heard from Vita except to say she arrived safely. And that was months ago … six of them, in fact. Tanya sighed as she looked down at the puppy with oversized paws, snoring away in the passenger side of her rental truck. She’d gone to the bathroom at a rest stop along the way. She’d stopped by the vending machines and emptied her loose change into the machines. She bought two peanut butter sandwiches, M&Ms, Fritos, chips, chocolate milk and bottle water.
She noticed a big-eared, fuzzy, brown and white puppy sitting on the lawn near the entrance to the dark brown fake wood façade of the rest stop, wagging his tail at anybody that passed. For some reason, he sniffed the air and then scooted over to her. He followed her to her SUV as if she owned him.
“If that’s your dog, better put a leash on him or catch a fine, Miss.” One of the State Park’s crew pointed to the white sign with the red letters. “Dogs must be on leash or pay a $200 to $400 fine. It’s the law.”
“He’s not my dog,” Tanya remarked as the big-eared puppy with the too big feet followed her. He barked and loped ahead, waiting at her rental truck. Soon as she opened the door, he jumped into the SUV then scooted to the passenger seat and hopped onto the floor. He got comfortable on the floor rug.
“Hey, Doggie? Get out of my vehicle!” Tanya shouted as she walked around and opened the passenger door. “Come, get out!” she yelled again.
A passerby stopped to give her some advice. “You shouldn’t yell at your dog like that. Talk to him nice, calm and low. He’s just a puppy. He might not understand what you want. Tone is very important when speaking to a dog or a puppy. Calm, firm and to the point.”
Tanya nodded. “Thanks.” She waited until he was out of hearing. “Yeah, Dude, thanks for nothing.” She looked down at the dog in her car. “You are a big guy. But you look like a puppy.” He licked her hand. “Who do you belong to, huh? I bet nobody. They just dumped you, huh? Probably not here. Maybe down the road somewhere and you wandered in here.” She sighed as she closed the passenger door. “Let’s find you food and water and a leash too.” She slid into the driver’s seat. “Maybe I’ll buy a bed and a couple of bowls for you too.” She watched him get comfortable on the floor.
She sat in the SUV, using her cellphone to find the nearest pet store. “Well, Puppy, it looks like we’re about twenty minutes away from help. I’ll get you a bed, food, water and find out what kind of dog you are. Okay?” The puppy dog closed his eyes and went to sleep. She started the car and drove to the shopping mall looking for the Chew Bits Pet Store.
At the pet store, Tanya grabbed a shopping cart then struggled to lift the roly-poly puppy dog into it.
“Whew! You are heavy. You need to lose some weight.”
“Aw, don’t say that. He just a big guy,” one of the store clerks who was bringing carts into the store for customers remarked. She walked over to pet his fluffy fur.
Tanya noticed the bright orange badge, pinned on the breast of her long-sleeved navy shirt. She wore a white thermal shirt underneath it. “You work here, right?” She watched her shake her head. “Could you answer a question for me.”
“Sure, if I can.” The salesclerk kept petting and stroking the puppy dog’s fluffy hair. “He’s a cutie.” She looked up at the puppy dog’s owner, for the first time realizing she was a cutie like the puppy she owned.
“I found this big ole monster puppy earlier today. He just hopped inside my truck and wouldn’t leave. I think somebody left him on the side of the road. He wandered into the rest stop then into my car.” Tanya sighed. “I live in the city. I’ve never had a dog before. What kind of dog is he? What’s he eat? What stuff should I buy? What hotels or motels accept dogs around here?”
The salesclerk raised her hands in defense and then giggled. “Whoa! Slow down. I can show you everything you need to know. He’s probably a Saint Bernard. They can get huge, around a hundred-plus pounds when full-grown. Did you look for a chip or collar? If he has a chip, it means he’s registered.”
She examined his neck, ears and chest, feeling for something under his skin. “Nope, I’m not feeling anything. I’ll run a scanner over him when we get inside. Then we’ll look at beds, food, and feeding bowls. Oh yeah, he’ll need a leash, maybe two, and collars too. Shampoos, and conditioners, vitamins. He’ll need shots too and an exam. Our vet is still here. Let’s do that first.”
“That all sounds expensive.”
“We have pet insurance plans that can link up with your health insurance or your home insurance. In fact, you could call your own insurance agent. See how much it would cost to add a pet plan.” The clerk stopped playing with the puppy dog to study Tanya. “There aren’t many motels or hotels around here I can think of that accept dogs. I’m Penelope Rains. Everybody calls me Penny.” She offered a hand to shake. Then she smiled when Tanya took it. “You certainly have big, strong hands. You’ll need them to handle this big guy.” She winked at Tanya. “For other things too, I’d imagine.” She studied the flush creeping up Tanya’s cheeks. “Ah, she blushes too. Will she tell me her name?”
