Iris Avenue Read online

  He looked to Hannah like one of the biker gang members who hung out at the bar, which was notorious for violent fights and drug traffic. Even though it was cold outside he was wearing a sleeveless muscle shirt and combat fatigue pants. Hannah could see tattoos on almost every visible inch of skin, and anything on his head that could be pierced was. He even had little horn-like bumps installed above his forehead on each side of his bald head. The effect was as satanic as he intended it to be. Hannah shivered a little and was glad to be standing next to a bigger, more tender-hearted guy.

  “There’s nothin’ going on,” the driver said. “I found something in the dumpster, is all.”

  The devil man’s eyes widened.

  “What in the hell are you talking about?” he said.

  “None of your business,” the dumpster driver said, and when the devil man started toward them the driver stood up to his full height.

  “You don’t scare me,” the devil man said, and drew a knife out of a sheath on his belt.

  Hannah started backing up with the idea that she would run to her truck and call the police.

  “Then maybe this will,” the driver said, and produced a small handgun out of his jacket pocket. He pointed it at the man’s horned head and cocked it.

  This stopped the devil man in his tracks. He put the knife back in its sheath and held up both hands.

  “Hey man,” he said. “None of my business, like you said.”

  They watched him go in the back door of the Roadhouse.

  “He’ll be back with friends,” the driver said. “You better get on out of here.”

  Hannah didn’t need any more encouragement. She thanked the man and ran back to her truck with the puppy whimpering against her chest. As she left the parking lot she saw the horned man coming out the front door of the Roadhouse with two guys who were even bigger and scarier looking than he was. Hannah watched in her rearview mirror as they jumped out of the way to avoid being mowed down by the dumpster driver’s huge truck. She wondered if they would follow him. She also wondered what was in the dumpster that had the devil man so worried.

  Maggie Fitzpatrick was standing in front of the checkout counter in Little Bear Books, talking to Jeanette, her second in command.

  “I need your grandson to take a look at my computer,” Maggie said. “Since we upgraded I’ve been getting weird results when I run my financial reports.”

  “Jeffrey’s got school until two forty-five,” Jeanette said. “But I’ll let his mother know he should come here before soccer practice.”

  “Can’t we get him out of school?” Maggie asked.

  “He’s fourteen, Maggie,” Jeanette said. “He can’t miss school to work on your computers.”

  “Maybe he could get class credit for the work,” Maggie insisted.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I’ve been paying him but not that much. Maybe I should give him a raise.”

  “He does it for the discount,” Jeanette said, “and because his grandmother works for you. Maybe you should give me the raise instead.”

  Maggie looked so stricken that Jeanette laughed.

  “You should see your face, Maggie. You’re as tight as a tick.”

  “I know,” Maggie said, shaking her head. “My mother did that to me. That woman could squeeze two cents out of every penny.”

  Since Maggie couldn’t do the bookkeeping she wanted to do she went over to the family’s bakery to see if she could help out there. Maggie’s bookstore ran better without her nitpicking the staff to death, and Jeanette had everything well in hand, so she could afford to be flexible with her schedule.

  She arrived at the bakery right after Patrick told their mother that Brian had escaped from prison. Bonnie, pale and shaky, left to go tell Fitz, their father. Maggie was worried about her mother, but couldn’t go with her and leave the bakery unattended.

  Maggie called her cousin and best friend Hannah and asked her to please come to the bakery as soon as possible. She didn’t dare tell her the news over the phone, as the scanner grannies in town listened in on cellular and cordless phone calls using their police scanners. They were mostly harmless, isolated by age or illness, and looking for excitement by listening in to other people’s lives, but Maggie didn’t underestimate the negative effect of their gossip.

  Hannah’s mother Alice, who worked the eight-to-four shift in the bakery, came back from a short break and Maggie got her caught up.

  Alice’s response was, “Well, why on earth didn’t they shoot him rather than let him escape? He may come back here and kill us all in our sleep.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes as she turned away. Her Aunt Alice was ditzy and prone to say tactless things, but Maggie overlooked her for Hannah’s sake.

  When Hannah arrived, Maggie told her what was going on.

  “Your brother is like a comic book villain,” Hannah said. “No bars can hold him!”

  “Seems like it,” Maggie said.

  “Maybe he’s half man, half water vapor. When cornered he evaporates, and then reappears out of a puddle somewhere nearby.”

  “Hannah.”

  “I’ll have to think of a good comic book name for him. I know I want the word ‘red’ to be in there somewhere.”

  “Watch it,” Maggie warned.

  Brian and Maggie both had the red, freckled coloring of their mother’s Scottish side of the family, while their brothers Sean and Patrick had the blue eyes and dark hair of their father’s Black Irish side.

  “Keep your curls on,” Hannah told her. “Something to do with pirates, maybe.”

  When Brian tried to kidnap his son Timmy, the young boy had described his would-be assailant as looking like a pirate, with long red curls, a beard, and an earring.

  “Brian the Red,” Hannah said. “Or Slippery Brian, the Red Pirate of Rose Hill.”

  “Too long,” Maggie said.

  “Redbeard!” Hannah said. “Like Bluebeard only red.”

  “Bluebeard killed his wives.”

  “Accuracy is the hallmark of a good comic book name.”

  “Don’t joke about it,” Maggie said. “It feels wrong.”

  “Alright,” Hannah said. “I’ll work on another one, but it won’t be half as good if it’s not accurate.”

  Maggie helped her Aunt Alice prepare for the lunch rush, and Hannah rang up customers. Hannah tended to eat more baked goods than she sold so they had to keep an eye on her. Even though Hannah was tiny and skinny she ate like a lumberjack.

  “Have you used any of that makeup I bought you?” Alice asked her daughter. “It’s supposed to erase the lines you have around the eyes.”

  “No, mother,” Hannah said. “You know I don’t wear makeup.”

  “Well,” Alice sighed, “a mother can continue to hope, I guess. I had four boys before I had you, and if I’d known you wouldn’t like girly things I probably wouldn’t have bothered.”

  Maggie gasped but Hannah just laughed.

  “After I threw that fit at the first pageant you put me in you should have drowned me in the river,” she said.

  “I don’t know why you say such awful things,” her mother said. “You know I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Maggie shook her head in disbelief, but Hannah shrugged it off as her mother went back to the kitchen.

  “She thinks Claire and I were somehow switched at birth, even though we were born a year apart.”

  Claire was their cousin, daughter of Uncle Ian and Aunt Delia Fitzpatrick, and she, Hannah, and Maggie had always been close growing up. Claire was a girly girl, and worked as a hair and makeup artist on movie sets around the world. It only sounded glamorous, according to Claire, who suffered through long months on difficult location shoots babysitting bratty actors and actresses. She came home about once a year, and lived in California when she wasn’t traveling.

  “Have you heard from Miss Claire?” Hannah asked Maggie.

  “I get e-mails occasionally, but she hasn’t called in awhile
.”

  “Last I heard she was in Istanbul,” said Hannah. “Where is that, by the way?”

  “Turkey.”

  Hannah looked unenlightened.

  “Next to Greece,” Maggie said, pointing to an imaginary map on the counter. “There’s the Mediterranean, then Greece, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.”

  “That’s scary; why would you film a movie so close to a war zone?”

  “Because the story takes place there, I guess.”

  “Yeah, but can’t they build a pretend Turkey in California, on one of those lots? Seems like it would save a lot of money.”

  “Claire says spending money is what directors are good at, not saving it.”

  “She also says everyone in Hollywood sleeps with everyone else,” Hannah said.

  “She should know,” Maggie said

  “Meow, cousin. I’m telling her you said that.”

  A group of customers came in and the lunch rush began.

  Ed Harrison sat at his desk in the Rose Hill Sentinel newspaper office, his finger poised over the “Enter” key on his computer keyboard. He’d finished designing a website for the weekly paper, had proofread it multiple times, and was about to publish it on the Internet. It was a momentous occasion for the paper as well as for Ed, the third generation owner. The subscription base and advertising sales for the printed paper barely supported the business and Ed’s few personal expenses, and it had finally become evident that a change must be made.

  Ed couldn’t imagine how a website could take the place of the weekly paper, let alone support the business. Some of the older local business owners had balked at paying additional fees to have ads on the Internet version of the Sentinel, but the younger generation of business owners who had websites jumped on board. Ed was planning to launch the thing today, and hoped it wouldn’t be a huge failure, or ruin what was left of his print business.

  Ed’s grandfather had started the Sentinel, and Ed’s father brought him up to take over the business. Now Ed was bringing it into the twenty-first century, albeit a little behind the curve. His father had done his own typesetting and operated a printing press up until the day he keeled over with a heart attack.

  Ed, who was working on a Philadelphia daily paper at the time, came home immediately, made arrangements for his father’s funeral, and impulsively decided to take over the Sentinel. He purchased a computer and the requisite publishing software, and then engaged a local printing company to publish the little weekly.

  Ed made the paper his whole life, just like his father had, and his wife left him, just like Ed’s mother left his father. Ed quickly settled into the same ruts in which his father traveled every day: he did the same job, lived in the same house, drank the same beer while he sat on the same stool in the same bar, and drove the same truck. Over the years he had transformed from an energetic, promising young journalist into the middle-aged caretaker of one of the town’s most sacred cows.

  Ed clicked on the button that published the website and exhaled the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Mandy came in and swooped down on him with a big smooch and a hug from behind. This was more like the affectionate greeting he was used to.

  “Hey, good lookin’,” she said. “How’s my baby today?”

  “Same as I was a little while ago. Why aren’t you working?”

  “I got some time off so I could run some errands. I told you ‘bout that, but you weren’t listenin’. Got yer nose stuck to that computer all the time.”

  “I launched the website today.”

  “That’s great! Are you gonna add a celebrity gossip page, like I said?”

  “I don’t think that’s quite right for the Sentinel.”

  “I’m tellin’ ya, it’s the only thing people read on the Internet. My favorite part’s the blind items and the pictures of the crazy outfits.”

  “Hopefully people will read the news online as well,” Ed said, “or I may have to go to work at the Rose and Thorn alongside you.”

  “Don’t you worry, honey,” she said. “It’ll do great, I just know it. You’re the smartest man I know, and you know exactly what you’re doin’.”

  Ed wished he felt that confident.

  Hannah came in and greeted Mandy, who sailed out, blowing Ed a big kiss as she went.

  “Oo la la,” Hannah said. “It’s still the honeymoon suite in here, I see.”

  “What can I do for you, Hannah?” Ed asked her.

  “I came to see Hank, not you,” Hannah said, and walked over to look at the big black lab, who was asleep on a red cushion by the gas stove.

  “No more dogs, Hannah,” Ed said.

  “Now, why would you jump to that conclusion?” Hannah asked him, as she stooped down to rub Hank’s belly. “I just wanted to stop in and see my old buddy. He’s getting awfully fat, by the way. He could use a friend to play with.”

  “I jumped to that conclusion because I know you so well,” Ed said. “What is it this time?”

  “It’s a lab mix,” she said. “She’s so sweet and perfect for you.”

  “The last time you said you had a lab mix that was perfect for me, it was two percent lab and ninety-eight percent vicious killer.”

  “This is different. You’ve got to come see her; she’s over at Drew’s.”

  “Hannah, no. Even if she’s wonderful, my house is bursting at the seams as it is.”

  “Alright,” Hannah said. “I’ll have to throw her in the kennel with the stone-cold killers and hope she survives. I found homes for all of Theo’s dogs, you know.”

  “Everyone knows,” Ed said. “On your own time with county resources.”

  “She’ll keep Hank company, and really, two are no more trouble than one.”

  “I can’t take on any more responsibility,” Ed said. “Housebreaking would just about do me in.”

  “That’s okay,” Hannah said, backing out the door. “You’ve got enough on your plate. I understand.”

  Ed sighed deeply, then got up and put on his jacket.

  “Stay,” he told Hank, who didn’t even open his eyes.

  When Tommy arrived at the newspaper office at lunchtime he found Ed typing on the computer keyboard with one hand while cradling a small black puppy against his chest with the other.

  Ed handed the puppy to an ecstatic Tommy and said, “If you want her, you’ll have to take full responsibility. You’ll have to feed her and make sure she gets outside in time to poop and pee, every hour until she learns to hold it. I can keep her while you’re in school, but otherwise, she’ll be your problem.”

  Tommy took the puppy from Ed’s arms, and it whimpered a bit.

  “Where’d she come from?” Tommy said, as he cuddled her up under his chin.

  “Hannah found her,” was all Ed said.

  “I’ll take good care of her,” Tommy said.

  Mandy came in with a big smile that disappeared as soon as she saw the puppy. She gave Ed a pointed look.

  “Do I get to vote, or has this decision already done been made?” she asked.

  Tommy looked up in a panic, but Ed shrugged and met Mandy’s irritated look with a cool one of his own.

  “If you don’t want Tommy to have the dog, he can’t have the dog,” he said.

  “I’ll take care of her,” Tommy pleaded. “Please, Mom.”

  Mandy and Ed locked eyes for a long moment.

  “Thanks a lot, Ed,” she said. “Like I could say ‘no,’ now.”

  “Tommy has promised to look after her,” Ed said. “It will be a good experience for him.”

  “Good thing, because I ain’t cleanin’ up after it,” she declared. “You better make sure it don’t chew up none of my shoes, neither.”

  “I will, I will,” Tommy said.

  “You better take her out and see if she needs to pee,” Ed told him.

  As soon as the boy left, Ed said to Mandy, “I know I should have consulted you first and I’m sorry. Please don’t take it out on Tommy.”

  Mand
y embraced Ed and snuggled up under his chin.

  “That’s alright,” she said. “We’re still findin’ our way ‘round each other.”

  Ed hugged her and kissed the top of her head.

  When Tommy came back in, he was smiling from ear to ear.

  “She peed and pooped.”

  “Grab a plastic grocery bag and go pick it up,” Ed said.

  Tommy made a face.

  “That’s what it means to be a responsible pet owner,” Ed told him. “Anything that comes out of that dog you clean up.”

  Tommy nodded and fetched a grocery bag out of the office kitchen.

  “I’ll go to the grocery store and get her some food after you go back to school,” Ed told Tommy when he came back. “She’s too little to eat Hank’s food.”

  “I gotta get to work,” Mandy said to Ed. “Don’t forget you have basketball practice at 7:30 and Tommy needs help with his homework. You boys be good.”

  She kissed them both and left.

  Tommy ate and then went back to school. Ed took the pup down to the IGA to pick out some chow.

  Morris Hatcher stopped in at the Fitzpatricks’ Service Station right before Patrick left to go to his afternoon job at the Rose and Thorn. “Hatch,” as he was known, was a homely car mechanic who had been Hannah’s high school boyfriend. He worked at a service station in Fleurmania, a town so small it made Rose Hill seem like a metropolis.

  Patrick embraced Hatch and clapped him on the back.

  “I can’t believe my eyes,” Patrick said. “I didn’t think Marvin ever let you off the chain up there.”

  “That mean old sumbitch up and died on me this past weekend,” Hatch said. “Can you believe that?”

  “Well, he wasn’t exactly a health nut,” Patrick said, and invited Hatch inside out of the cold wind.

  Station owner Curtis Fitzpatrick greeted Hatch warmly and offered him a seat by the stove. The old coots had toddled off home for lunch so they had the place to themselves except for the mechanic, Lester, who was working on a car in one of the two service bays.

  “I can’t believe Marvin lived as long as he did,” Curtis said when they told him. “He had that sugar problem and drank like a fish.”