The Girl in White Pajamas Read online

  Randy’s face lost all color. “Mandie.”

  “Fuck off!” she yelled and ran inside the lobby.

  As Bogie slid open the glass door to return to the pool, he saw his cell phone light up on the chaise lounge. He walked by the pool, picked it up and looked at the caller ID. It was Rose Jones, his best friend and business partner. The corner of Bogie’s mouth twitched into Bogie’s version of a smile. But all vestiges of the smile disappeared as Rose brusquely said, “I tried to call you and didn’t get an answer, I tried to talk to Mandie twice and she hung up on me. What the hell’s going on there!?”

  “Just fighting with the neighbors.”

  After a moment’s silence, she asked, “John?”

  “The son-of-a-bitch came over here and tried to tase me!”

  “He came to your home and tried to zap you for no reason?”

  “He thinks he has a reason.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m the one who’s living across the street from that asshole. I couldn’t imagine being a part of his family! But I’m sure you didn’t call for an update on the Hatfields and McCoys. What’s up?”

  “Bud was killed last night!”

  “What?! What?! What happened? Did his wife finally shoot him?”

  “We don’t know what happened. He was shot last night--right in downtown--on Washington Street.”

  “Was he on duty? What was he doing there?”

  “I don’t know much more. Mother McGruder’s flipping out and your sister’s off the wall. You’d better come home.”

  “What about his wife? Does Jeannie even realize that this happened?”

  “She’s too drunk to talk right now.”

  “That sounds about right. Christ! What a mess! What time did it happen?”

  “Sometime between ten and eleven o’clock.”

  “Why didn’t you call me last night?

  “I got a call from Matt about two o’clock this morning. I didn’t think you wanted me to wake you up with news like that. I thought I’d hit you with it first thing this morning.”

  “What’s Matt MacDonald got to do with this?”

  “He’s the one who found Bud. He called it in.”

  “Ah, that’s right! Always together, joined at the dick! Was he there when Bud got shot?”

  “No. He showed up later.”

  “He just happened to be walking down Washington Street at eleven o’clock at night and tripped over Bud?”

  “I told you, I don’t have all the details. Ann could tell you more, but don’t call her until later. Apparently the doctor stopped by the house and gave both Ann and Mother McGruder sedatives. I’ve got you and Mandie booked on Jet Blue. You’ll be flying out of Palm Beach tomorrow at 1:10 and you’ll get to Boston at 4:12. It’s Flight 424.”

  “Tomorrow?” Bogie asked.

  “I didn’t think you’d be in a rush to get here and wasn’t even sure if you’d come. If you’re not coming, I’ll cancel the reservations. Otherwise, I’ll pick you up at arrivals. Just call me when you get your luggage. Oh, Bogie…I’m sorry.”

  Bogie hung up wondering who would want to kill ‘Officer Bud’, the PR face of the Boston Police Department. Bud wasn’t a street cop, and the general public, who really didn’t know him, liked him. Poor Ann, poor Herself and poor Jeannie. No, scratch that, Jeannie was better off without that philanderer making her wretched life more miserable. Should he feel sad although he couldn’t stand Bud?

  “Are you okay?”

  Surprised, he turned and looked at Amanda. Her eyes were filled with tears.

  “Sure, I’m fine, Princess.”

  “What did Aunt Rose want?” He told her, and she quickly said, “Oh, my God!” As Bogie reached out to comfort her, she asked, “Do we really have to go?” When his eyebrows shot up, she continued, “C’mon, Dad, it’s not like you liked him or anything.”

  “He’s dead. It’s not about him. It’s family. Funerals are for the living not the dead. We’re going for your Aunt Annie and your grandmother.”

  “I know. I know. It’s just that this is a bad time.” A tear rolled down her cheek.

  Bogie put his arm around her shoulders and walked her inside. They sat on one of the large leather sofas they’d picked out together. More tears rolled down her cheeks, and she brushed them away with the back of her hand. Bogie studied her and asked, “What’s the matter, Princess?”

  She covered her face with both hands and wept. When she moved them to her lap, Amanda sniffled and said, “I’m pregnant!”

  Bogie sat stunned. “Holy shit!” He’d barely come to grips with the fact that she was turning into a woman. And now pregnant! It was definitely Randy Carpenter who, Bogie believed, would make a better poet than a cop! He’d seen that look on their faces every time they came near each other. Bogie wondered why birth control didn’t enter into the equation, but said nothing. Since he had a daughter he’d never met living with her mother in Boston, Bogie didn’t believe he was qualified to play Monday morning quarterback.

  He asked, “So, what are you going to do?”

  She shrugged. “Randy…asked me to…we were supposed to get married.” She started crying again.

  “What! You’re only eighteen! You’re still in school!”

  “So?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I thought we’d get married after graduation. But then he acted like such a…” The tears flowed.

  They were interrupted by Carlos, the construction supervisor, as he charged through the front door. The broad mocha-skinned man wearing a tight black tee shirt and white shorts breathlessly asked, “Hey, Boss, what’s happening? Margarita called and said she saw you fighting with that cracker and his son outside.”

  “It was nothing, it’s over.”

  “So why’s she crying?”

  “We just found out my brother’s dead. We have to fly to Boston tomorrow.”

  “Sorry, Boss,” Carlos Aragon said softly as he crossed himself. “What can I do to help?”

  “Just keep things moving along here.”

  Carlos nodded and studied Bogie. “So…everything’s okay here?”

  Amanda wiped another tear from her cheek, got up and walked to her room.

  Bogie stared at the empty hallway, wondering how Amanda was going to deal with a pregnancy and a child when she was little more than a child herself.

  When he didn’t receive a satisfactory answer, Carlos asked, “What’s going on here? What’s she really crying about?”

  2 NIGHT CRAWLERS

  At ten o’clock that night, Bogie sat at the desk in his office finishing reports for the security firm that he and Rose Jones owned while Amanda lounged on a couch in the large lobby with her two blonde girlfriends, Tiffany and Zoe, on either side of her like bookends.

  The girls watched TV while they ate unbuttered popcorn and sipped sweet tea. Bogie called his sister, Ann. As soon as she answered the phone, Ann started sobbing. “Don’t cry, Annie! I’ll be there tomorrow,” he said helplessly.

  “I can’t believe this. I can’t stand this anymore!” Ann wailed.

  “You have to be strong, Ann.”

  “No, I don’t! I’m not tough like you. I’m not a strong person. I’m sick of all of this. And now Bud’s dead! This is a nightmare!”

  Suspecting his sister was fairly well lubricated, he said gently, “Get some rest. I’ll be there tomorrow. I love you, Annie!”

  “I love you too,” she whimpered.

  After he ended the call, Tiffany looked at him sitting behind the desk in the office. “Mr. M,” she called out.

  “Yes, Tiff?”

  “Is your sister still mad at Mandie?”

  Bogie shook his head.

  “The last time she talked to her she gave Mandie crap about TBS.”

  Bogie looked over his half glasses and shook his head. “That was a long time ago. Ann’s got other things on her mind now.”

  Bogie recal
led the girls’ tarnished scholastic records from their stay at The Benjamin School. When he and Amanda flew into Palm Beach four years earlier, Bogie planned on passing papers on the property, meeting with prospective construction supervisors and then returning to Boston to work out a timetable for their move. He expected Bailey, the love of his life, to be a part of it. Bogie hadn’t planned on Bailey dumping him or that he he’d have a heart attack en route to Palm Beach. The property was uninhabitable so when Rose arrived, she got a six month sublet in North Palm Beach where Bogie and Amanda lived while Bogie underwent open heart surgery and recuperated. It was Ann who had found the Benjamin School and insisted that was the place for Amanda to mingle with her social peers. Ann paid her tuition for one year, and Amanda reluctantly attended. The only thing Amanda liked about the school were the friendships she formed with Zoe and Tiffany. When it was time for final exams, the girls were not prepared; however, they obtained copies of the exams complete with the correct answers. Their test scores were almost perfect. Taking into account that Amanda and Tiffany were barely C students while Zoe was just a cut above, the teachers and administrators questioned the girls over and over and over. Fingers were pointed at Amanda and Tiffany whose ability to obtain such scores was highly questionable. They were expelled, and Zoe stayed at the school. Bogie knew all the girls were involved and spoke to Paul Gallagher, Tiffany’s dad, because he was a cop. They agreed that it was probably Zoe who came up with the answers, but Zoe was smart enough to keep her mouth closed and not incriminate herself.

  *****

  When their mindless program ended, the girls sighed. Zoe pushed her streaked blonde hair back behind her ear and checked a small chip on one of her hot pink acrylic nails while asking, “Did he call you?”

  Amanda shook her head sadly and her shiny black hair moved from side to side over her shoulders.

  “What are you gonna do?” Tiffany asked scrunching up her freckled nose.

  “I can’t think about it!” Amanda said dramatically. “I can only deal with one tragedy at a time! Maybe he doesn’t even know what happened.”

  The two blondes studied her. Zoe asked, “Do you want me to tell him about your uncle?”

  Amanda shook her head believing Zoe would be only too happy to pass along the news to Randy and maybe ease her way into the spot Amanda had vacated.

  Bogie listened to these young ladies and wondered if they had a clue about life, love, family or raising a child. He hoped that, unlike her mother, Amanda would come to realize that it wasn’t a Barbie doll she was giving birth to but a real human being.

  *****

  As her granddaughter and her friends lounged on couches in the apartment complex lobby in Florida, Elizabeth McGruder sat straight up in her bed in Boston. Wearing a white flannel nightgown, Elizabeth walked to the bedroom window and stood staring into the backyard which was shrouded in darkness. Elizabeth grasped the window sill as she stood bare-footed with her thinning white hair hanging down her back. She saw him! She caught him! Elizabeth made her way down the staircase of the brownstone. She moved through the back hallway to the den. Sitting in a large leather chair behind a mahogany desk, she cried while she inserted six bullets into the cylinder chamber of a .38 revolver. She pulled back the hammer and muttered, “I saw you go over there, you cheating snake!” Without her cane but fortified by the sedatives and a half a bottle of scotch consumed over the course of the day, she headed for the kitchen and out the back door. When she entered the tiny back yard, she walked over to the adjoining brownstone and fired six shots through the kitchen window yelling, “You, lying, cheating bastard! I did everything in this world for you! And how do you repay me? You take up with yet another whore! And this Russian whore, Olga. She’s your son’s wife and has your baby!?”

  A shot blasted over Elizabeth’s head as Jeannie McGruder, herself drunk, yelled through the broken window, “You fuck’n crazy bitch! Go home and sleep it off. That dickwad’s dead and so is his whore!”

  3 BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

  Two small figures sat on a couch in a house eleven miles outside of Boston. The tiny Cambodian woman wiped a tear off her cheek with a shaky hand. The little girl with a mass of red curls took the woman’s other hand. “Don’t be scared, Kim! I’ll protect you. You’ll feel better tomorrow. Remember when Fluffy was hanging from the tree?” The child lifted her right arm in the air and dropped her tongue out of the side of her mouth to illustrate her point.

  Kim nodded.

  Isabella continued, “You told me I’d feel better tomorrow, and I did. I was still sad but not so scared.”

  They sat in silence staring at a TV screen. The small woman grabbed the little redhead’s hand again as The Bride used her sword to slice off the arm of O-Ren’s assistant. Blood gushed from the gaping hole, and The Bride moved on to slay and maim the Crazy Eighty-Eight Army. “This is Lucy Liu,” Kim said softly.

  The child nodded as they watched their favorite part:

  The Bride confronts O-Ren

  and O-Ren says ‘Silly rabbit.’

  The Bride answers, ‘Trix are for—”

  O-Ren finishes, ‘kids’.

  Isabella giggled and Kim smiled. Then they watched the screen mesmerized as the warriors had a fight to the death.

  No one paid attention to a vehicle that stopped in front of their house on this isolated road. As the car slowly drove away, the woman and little girl sat transfixed on the couch surrounded by moving crates and boxes with a large bag of potato chips, a tub of French onion dip and two juice boxes sitting between them–the breakfast of champions.

  4 THE BLUEBIRD OF SADNESS

  Florida

  The black Dodge Ram truck moved up the roadway surrounded by lush grass and palm trees. Carlos squinted from the bright sun as he tried to follow the correct path to the departures area of the Palm Beach International Terminal. When Carlos stopped, Bogie got out on the front passenger side and opened the back door for Amanda. The large, modern terminal was bustling with scantily clad travelers who were departing the Sunshine State ready to show off their sunburned skin to the folks back home. Everyone seemed to be smiling except Amanda. She got out of the truck with her shoulders drooping. Carlos opened the driver’s door, jumped out and grabbed Amanda’s suitcase from the back. As he dragged it to curbside check-in, he studied Amanda’s pale face and wondered what she packed that weighed so much. Bogie thanked Carlos and bumped fists with him. “Take care of my truck!”

  As Carlos drove away, Bogie looked from Amanda to the two suitcases in front of him. “Where’s the garment bag?” he asked.

  Her mouthed dropped open as she remembered placing the bag on the couch before they left. “I must have forgotten,” she said softly looking at the ground.

  Bogie put his arm around her shoulders. “We’ve lived through worse.”

  After riding on an escalator down to the security area, Bogie and Amanda moved through easily. They walked to their gate past shops selling overpriced souvenirs, books, magazines, drinks and snacks. Bogie turned to Amanda. “Do you want something to drink?”

  She only shook her head.

  When they walked to the next vendor, Bogie asked Amanda to stop while he purchased two bottles of spring water. She bit her bottom lip then said, “I just told you I didn’t want anything.”

  “Why do you assume they’re for you?” Bogie asked as they arrived at their gate and sat down. Bogie looked at his large black Suunto Core watch while Amanda scrolled through messages on her iPhone. Bogie reached down into his computer bag and picked up his Kindle. After bringing up a chapter from a W.E.B. Griffin book in The Corps series, he reached down again and pulled out a large bag of trail mix. He opened the Ziploc bag and grabbed a handful. Amanda watched him, took the bag from him and picked the cashew nuts out the way he knew she would.

  As she reached for one of the water bottles, Bogie asked, “Do you love him?”

&nbs
p; She froze in place then turned to him. “Of course I love him! We were supposed...” She trailed off and teared up.

  “Then call him!”

  Amanda looked at him as if he were demented. “That’s not how it works! He’s supposed to call me.”

  “Aren’t you the one who gave him his ring back?”

  “I know. I was mad,” she mumbled.

  “Angry” he corrected

  “Whatever!”

  “Maybe you could text him and tell him your uncle died. Then the next move would be his.”

  Amanda studied him. “When did you become Dr. Phil?”

  One side of Bogie’s mouth twitched to indicate he was almost smiling. “I just don’t like seeing you unhappy. I’ve made my share of mistakes and would like to spare you from a few of them.”

  Amanda rested her head on his shoulder as other prospective passengers gave them surreptitious glances believing this was another one of those May/December Palm Beach matches.

  When it was time to board, Amanda quickly texted a message then stood up. She clutched the phone and glanced at it every few seconds until the flight attendant instructed her to turn it off. Reluctantly, she sat back in her seat.

  As the plane ascended, Amanda looked over at her father and asked, “How old were you the first time you went to a funeral?”

  “Thirteen. It was my mother’s funeral.” Bogie remembered standing alone with the priest in the back section of the cemetery as his mother’s cheap coffin was lowered into the ground while the priest chanted prayers and sprinkled holy water. Bogie was paralyzed with fear as he realized he was all alone. His mother had been a drunk, but she was all he had.

  “So I beat you. I was eight when Jennifer died,” Amanda said bringing Bogie out of his reverie.