Page 7 of A Midsummer Night’s Ghost (Murder By Design #8)

SEVEN

It was amazing what I could accomplish when I was actively avoiding something unpleasant.

What had been a vague conversation between me and Jake about low cost ways to update our hall bathroom in our new house suddenly became a trip to the big box hardware store and ordering peel and stick wallpaper and bath towels for overnight delivery.

All because I didn’t want to read James Kwaitkowski’s autopsy report that Jake had given me.

I wasn’t exactly sure why. Maybe it had to do with talking to Patricia Jackson’s bagged ghost earlier that day. Maybe because I was tired of the changing rules from the afterlife (like seriously, what the heck was a Class A spirit?) or the fact that James couldn’t even see me.

But whatever the reason, every time I thought about opening my email my stomach tightened and I got restless.

So I was dressed in one of Jake’s old T-shirts that had grease stains on it and a pair of my ancient leggings. I was dipping a rag into a bucket of hot water to wash the bathroom walls in preparation for paint and wallpaper.

I had no idea what I was doing.

But I was armed with creative avoidance, YouTube videos, and a vision of what our burgundy and pink bathroom could become.

Jake’s first reaction to the square pink tiles, pink toilet and sink, and pink and ivory floor was “we’ll have to rip this out at some point” but I had immediately protested. This was an original nineteen-fifties “Mamie Pink” bathroom, inspired by President Eisenhower’s wife Mamie and her pink White House bathroom. The heavy burgundy paint in full gloss on the walls above it was competing with the soft warmth of the pink and the wallpaper border at the ceiling was a nineties paisley clash, but otherwise I loved the actual tile. There was a built-in toothbrush holder that deserved to exist another seventy years.

In my opinion, anyway, and I dared anyone to fight me on it.

I just had to clean eighteen miles of grout and remove the wallpaper border.

In my previous house I had painted my kitchen and tackled some basic home maintenance but otherwise I had bought it fully renovated.

In my impatience to take on the bathroom project with next to no planning and zero experience, I had taken a bold and risky move—I’d called my mother over.

She had wallpapered and stenciled every single inch of my massive childhood home in her energetic thirties. She had faux painted and lime washed and schmeared brick and rag rolled her way from room to room until there was nothing left.

Then she’d moved on to handcrafted dried floral arrangements and tiling a backsplash and using a peacock feather and gold metallic spray paint to turn the powder room into a teal and gold wonder. Finally, my father had said enough when she had tried to do a full floor-to-ceiling wall of chintz drapery in our windowless basement.

It was his one last bastion of floral-free safety and he put his foot down at chintz.

The no-florals-in-the-man-cave rule hadn’t extended to the laundry room though and she’d done a mosaic tile on the utility tub in the shape of orchids.

I figured I was in good hands.

“We could paint a stencil pattern on this tile,” she said to me as she used an old toothbrush and cleaner to scrub the grout. “Since you can’t tear it out.”

I was a little surprised. Lately, since her divorce from my father, she’d been in a minimalist era, with a very beige on beige condo and eighties inspired sherpa barrel chairs.

“Hmm,” I said, noncommittally because my answer was no. But you didn’t just say no to my mother unless you were prepared to be cross-examined.

“Did I mention Alyssa got married?” I asked my mom, striving for casual as I scrubbed the walls and worked up a sweat.

“Married? To who? Not that jackass the two of you went to high school with that she was seeing for awhile, I hope.”

“No, fortunately it’s not Michael.” Alyssa had briefly dated her high school bully after he’d expressed shock and awe at her adult transformation from chubby teen to pin up siren. My mother was right—definitely a jackass.

“No, it’s Lawson Hill. He’s the sheriff in Ashtabula County. It was, uh, a very quick courtship and Jake said you might know him. I’m just curious if I should suggest Alyssa get a quickie divorce or if I should let her ride this out.”

Mom paused in her scrubbing and eyed the bristles of the toothbrush. She gingerly picked a loose bristle off and tossed it in the sink. “I’ve met him a few times. He’s normal enough, as far as normal goes. I mean, what is really normal anymore? Good looking, well spoken. She could definitely do worse. It’s a mess out there.”

Oh, no. This was my mother’s way of hinting I should ask about her own dating life. Because she was helping me scrub grout, I had to give her something, even though I really didn’t want to hear about her love life. I wanted her to be happy, of course, I just didn’t want details.

I dutifully asked though, “Really? No good prospects on the senior singles site?”

She made a face. “I’m not a senior single. Good Lord, Bailey.”

I was pretty sure the definition of senior was over fifty-five, but I didn’t want to point that out to her. Age is a number, I do believe that. Look at Grandma Burke. She was willing to try anything as long as it was on land. She wasn’t a fan of water.

“I thought that’s what the site was called. I wasn’t suggesting you date a ninety-year-old.”

“Speaking of ninety-year-olds, I don’t know if you should just drop Grandma off at that senior center. Are there any medical professionals on site?”

Being criticized for giving my grandmother autonomy was better than discussing Mom’s love life, but not by much. “No, but there is staff there.”

“Hmm.”

Geez. She “hmm’d” me right back. I wasn’t sure I liked that.

“I am seeing someone,” my mother said. The scrubbing increased. “It’s new and he’s a little younger than me, but he’s not a total loser, so it’s a start.”

“Not a total loser” was actually a ringing endorsement from my mother.

“That’s good.” I wasn’t sure what else I was to say. But then I paused. “How much younger?”

She shrugged. “He’s forty-nine.”

I was a little surprised but I decided I didn’t really care. That really wasn’t that big of an age gap and I just wanted her to enjoy herself. “As long as you like him I think that’s great, Mom.”

“It will probably end in total disaster but whatever.”

Ever the optimist, my mom.

I finished scrubbing the wall and opened my step ladder so I could peel off the wallpaper border. It was a stretch even with the ladder and that stuff was stuck on there more thoroughly than I was expecting. I had envisioned just popping the corner and peeling it off in one fell swoop.

I really was the optimist.

Nothing sort of a sandblaster was getting that paper off.

“Good news,” Mom said, cheerfully.

I eyed her in suspicion.

That was a trick.

She never announced good news.

“What’s that?”

“Your sister and the kids are coming from Texas for a visit. Can they stay with you? I don’t really have room in my new condo.”

Alarm bells went off. “Mom, no. We just moved in. We’re not even unpacked. Besides, we have three bedrooms and Grandma lives with us. I’m excited to see them all but they can stay with Dad. He’s living in that big house by himself and Jen has practically a newborn.”

Mom had walked away from the four thousand square foot house I had grown up in last year when she also walked away from my father.

She gave me an annoyed look. “He does not live alone,” she sniffed. “He moved that woman in with him.”

Oh, boy. That woman was the other woman he’d been cheating on my mom with. I instantly felt bad for her.

“When did that happen?” I wasn’t surprised he hadn’t told me. Dad liked to avoid anything that might be uncomfortable.

“The minute Grandma moved in with you.”

“Oh. Wow.”

“She covered my teal and gold powder room walls with shiplap and a sign that says, ‘I don’t remember eating corn’.”

I blanched. “Oh my God. Mom. That’s…”

“Horrifying. I know.”

Potty humor in home decor is not my thing. Or my mom’s. Apparently Nancy liked a good poop joke and now I felt really bad for my mother and was on the verge of offering her anything she wanted, including hosting my sister and her gaggle of children.

I was not going to give in, I was not going to give in…

“When is Jen coming?” I asked, feeling myself already giving in.

“In three weeks.”

“She’s bringing all the kids?”

Stay strong, stay strong.

“You say that like she has twelve offspring.”

“She has five. That’s a lot.”

“Okay, it is kind of a lot of kids,” my mother acknowledged. “I had to stop at two.”

To be honest, I had often thought I had reason to be grateful she’d even had two. It much more tracked with her personality to have stopped after my sister, realizing motherhood wasn’t exactly a natural fit for her.

“Jen doesn’t have a career like you did. Do.”

“True. But of course she’s bringing all her kids. What would she do with them if she didn’t?” My mother looked at me like I was suggesting she leave half her kids home alone with Alexa as a babysitter.

“I thought maybe she would just bring the baby and leave the other kids at home with her husband. You know, their father.”

“She’s not going to pick some of her children to bring and not the others.”

“Is Doug coming too then?” That was seven humans. There was no way ten of us could fit in this house for more than three hours.

My mother shook her head. “No. He’s staying at home in Dallas because he has to work. She can’t leave the kids with him. Think, Bailey, good grief.”

Well, this was fun.

I decided I was ready to read the autopsy report once she left.

That couldn’t possibly be any more annoying than this.

“They can’t stay here. I’m sorry. Even without Doug, there are still six of them, Mom. They’re at max capacity for a minivan.”

“You don’t have a minivan.”

I tried to pick at the wallpaper border again and gave up when it stayed one hundred percent stuck. It was feeling like a metaphor for this conversation. I climbed down off of the ladder. “I don’t even have a guest room set up. I’m being totally serious. They can’t stay here. Jake is already sharing the house with Grandma.”

And Ryan. And any other ghost who decided to pop in for a visit.

Add a newborn and four rowdy kids to that, plus my chirpy sister, and it would be total chaos.

“Jake knew what he was getting into.”

“Jake agreed to have Grandma move in with us. Not Jen and her entire basketball team of children.”

“I don’t trust your father to have them stay with him.”

“What is he going to do to them?” I asked. “You trusted him with us when we were kids.”

“No, I didn’t.”

I sighed. “I’ll take Jasmine. She’s almost seven. I can handle a semi-independent child as a temporary roommate. And only if Jake agrees it’s okay. This is his house too.”

“We’re negotiating over loved ones?” Mom asked, shooting me a look of disapproval.

When I didn’t say anything further, she shrugged. “Fine. Though you have to tell your sister.”

“Tell her what? That she’s staying in your condo?”

“No, with Dad.”

I hated to break this to my mother, but I was pretty sure Jen would be fine with it. It was Mom and Grandma Burke who had an issue with Dad, not the rest of us. Though I wasn’t sure Jen knew Nancy and her wooden signs had moved in.

Since I really didn’t want to have this conversation and I clearly needed additional tools and online video instructions on removing stubborn wallpaper, I decided having my mother here did have an additional advantage. This woman knew autopsies.

“Hey, can I ask you to look at an autopsy report?” I asked her.

My mother stopped scrubbing tile and gave me a look that honestly made me shake a little in my sneakers. “Bailey Margaret Burke. Why on earth would you ask me that? Also, I need a verbal agreement from you that you’ll talk to your sister.”

Wow. She drove a hard bargain.

I had always said I wouldn’t want to face my mother in a courtroom as a defendant and this confirmed it. Along with a million other moments in my life.

“I will tell Jen. I promise.” I pulled my phone out of the pocket of my leggings and scrolled to find the email from Jake. “The janitor at the senior center died the other day and his autopsy just came in.”

Now she was really studying me. “Why do you have that and why do you care about this person’s death?”

I might not have thought this all the way through. Because I didn’t exactly have a valid reason and I could not tell my mother I was a spiritual medium. She didn’t believe in ghosts or psychics or astrology or tarot. “His ex-wife is concerned as to what happened because they share a minor child.”

“Ah. She’s worried it’s suicide and she won’t collect the life insurance?”

I nodded, walking right through the door she’d opened. “Exactly.”

She set the toothbrush down and held her hand out. “Give it to me.”

I handed her the phone, feeling very much like I’d just been grounded for looking at my phone at the dinner table. That might have happened once or twelve times when I was in high school.

She pulled her reading glasses out of her bra and put them on.

As she’d aged, her bra had become something of a wonderland. She kept everything in there from her phone to tissues to her debit card. She felt confident no wayward mugger would dig in her cleavage now that she was “old.” Which was of course completely untrue and illogical, especially considering she got angry if anyone other than her even so much as suggested she’s no longer thirty-five. But it all made sense to her.

She scrolled and read. “He died of ethylene glycol poisoning? Good Lord, that’s a rough way to go.”

“How do you get that?”

“You drink a shitload of antifreeze.” She shoved her glasses back up onto her head and handed me my phone back. “That’s the cause of death. Manner of death is undetermined because the medical examiner doesn’t have enough information to determine if it’s suicide or homicide. But it’s probably suicide.”

“How do you know that?”

She shrugged. “Real life isn’t like TV dramas.”

“But aren’t there easier ways to, uh, end your life?”

“Depends on what you consider easy.”

“Like, less painful? Isn’t that a painful way to go?”

“Oh, definitely.”

“And would you really drink antifreeze and then go to work?” That sounded…very unpleasant. I wasn’t exactly sure what that kind of poisoning would do but I was picturing lots of vomiting.

“He was at work?” My mother washed her hands in the bathroom sink. “Hmm. That does seem odd. Unless he lives alone and wanted to make sure someone found him. No note or anything?”

“No note. They seemed to think he had a heart attack.”

“Nope. Maybe he was an alcoholic and just thought he’d take a little swig.” She dried her hands on a hand towel. “Are we done here? You’re just standing around.”

I eyed the bathroom and sighed in defeat. “I think this is an entire weekend project, not the hour I was hoping for.”

“You always want immediate gratification.”

“Who doesn’t?” I protested.

“I do. I love immediate gratification.” Ryan appeared behind my mother in the doorway and pretended to look down her shirt. “Anything in there for me?”

I did jump a little—I can’t help it, it’s still startling—but otherwise I managed to ignore him enough that my mother didn’t suspect anything was wrong.

“It’s freezing in this bathroom,” she complained. “How old is this HVAC?”

“It’s from the eighties.” Though the cold chill she was feeling was Ryan’s ghost hovering right behind her.

“That’s older than you,” she pointed out, as if I wasn’t aware of what decade I was born in.

“I don’t know about this house,” she said, sounding dubious at best.

“That’s what I keep saying, Mrs. B!” Ryan nodded in agreement. “Total turd.”

“I like this house,” I said, because Jake loved this house and I was going to defend him no matter what questionable design choices were lingering. Everything had a time and place when it was the latest and greatest in home decor, including shower doors with etched swans. “I feel like people who bought houses for five dollars at one percent interest shouldn’t have opinions about our purchase.”

I was actually directing that at Ryan, not my mother. He’d bought a starter house for less than a hundred grand when interest rates were so good they made you want to slap your mama.

Fortunately, she didn’t take offense. She actually gave a begrudging laugh. “Fair enough. I know you’ll make this house beautiful. You have amazing taste.”

Normally, I would ride that high for days. A compliment from my mother was rare.

Which was why it also made me a little concerned that she might be dying of cancer or something.

She even went so far as to give my upper arm a squeeze, which was heavy level affection for her.

It felt like more bad news was about to slung my way and she was buttering me up.

But she just smiled and I let my shoulders relax. “Thanks, Mom.”

Honestly, everyone seemed so grumpy lately it was a nice change.

Or maybe it was me who was grumpy.

“Your mom is stone cold,” Ryan said as the three of us left the bathroom. “She just shrugged off the idea of some dude swigging antifreeze like it’s mouthwash. I dig that about her.”

I didn’t react.

“If I was still walking around in a meat suit, I’d ask your mom out. I hear she dates younger guys now.”

I would not react, I would not react…

“Plus, she has great ti?—

“Ahhh!” I screamed to get him to shut up.

My mom jumped. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I saw a spider. A hairy one.” I glared at Ryan.

He just laughed.