“I have a problem, and I need the two of you to take care of it.” Gigi plopped her big red leather purse down on the pink laminate table at Link & Patty’s Breakfast Buffet, where my dad and I were having breakfast. I’d called him after my early meeting and invited him to join me so I could fill him in on everything Dmitri had said about the jewel thief staying at the Imperial Hotel. He was as dubious about the whole story as I’d been.
“Didn’t you always teach me to take care of my own problems?” Harlan said to Gigi, stabbing at a piece of ham without even looking over at her as she slid in next to him.
“Don’t talk back to your mother, dear. No one likes a wiseass. And all I need is one tiny favor. I need you two to push something through lickety-split with the city council.”
I took her purse off the table and set it on the seat next to me. “If there’s something you need, we can ask, Gigi, but we can’t do something for you that we wouldn’t do for other members of the community. That wouldn’t be right.”
She caught Patty’s eye and pointed at my coffee cup, indicating she wanted some of the same. Patty nodded as Gigi looked back to me and said, “Oh, please. Every person on that city council has done favors for people, and what good is it for me if I have a son who is the chief of police and a granddaughter who is the mayor, if I can’t get a special favor once in a while? I can’t believe you two call yourselves politicians, and anyway, this is a very unique set of circumstances.”
Harlan’s expression remained dour. “I have never once called myself a politician.”
“What is it you need, Gigi?” I asked, sensing this conversation could wander off in a multitude of useless directions.
“I need to get rid of three dead husbands.”
“Excuse me?” Dad and I spoke in unison, causing several diners to turn and stare.
“Well, you know they’re all in urns sitting on my mantel, and Gus says I can’t bring them to his place, so I have to find somewhere else for them to live, er . . . I mean, someplace for them to be dead? Either way, Gus says they can’t come to his house.”
Patty arrived with coffee just then, splashing a little over the rim as she set it down. “So, it’s true, then? You and Gus? June Mahoney was in here yesterday with Olivia Bostwick, and I could tell they were spitting mad about something.”
Gigi dumped a container of creamer into the cup. “Please, Patty. We are trying to have a private family conversation here.”
“In the middle of my diner during the breakfast rush? Good luck with that. And good luck dealing with those Mahoney sisters, too. Hope Gus is worth the trouble.”
Patty turned and sashayed away as Gigi added two sugars to the cup and stirred vigorously. “As I was saying, Gus says no way to me bringing my dead husbands, but if they don’t come with me, what am I supposed to do with them? Emily says she doesn’t want to be responsible for them, and I can’t just dump them out in any old place, on any old day. There needs to be some kind of ceremony, some kind of special send-off.”
“Like a memorial service,” I said. “That makes sense, but why is that something the council needs to be involved in?”
She paused a moment, as if choosing her words carefully, which is a thing I’d never seen her do before.
“Well, I’ll tell you. I happened to be discussing this with Chloe, and she did a little research on that fold-up computer of hers. I tell you, you can find out just about anything about just about anything on the World Wide Web these days. And there’s something called apps. I love the apps. Have you heard of Pinterest?”
“Stick to one subject at a time, please, Mom. I haven’t had enough coffee yet today to deal with one of your rabbit holes.” Harlan took another bite of ham, chewing it methodically.
“Oh, fine. So, Chloe researched how to dispose of ashes, and it turns out there are all sorts of fun things you can do.”
“Fun?” Disposing of human remains did not seem fun to me, no matter how you did it. “I’m sure I’ll regret asking this, but what kind of fun things?”
Gigi leaned forward, clearly encouraged by my interest. “Well, first of all, I could have their ashes compressed by a special machine that will turn them into gemstones. Isn’t that fascinating? I think it’s fascinating, but Gus says no way. He says if he doesn’t want them on the mantel, he sure doesn’t want them hanging around my neck, either.”
Bodies turned into jewelry? I had to side with Gus on that one, although it was odd seeing her defer so easily to someone else’s rules. “Gus sounds pretty bossy, Gigi. Are you sure you’ve thought this through? Can’t you two just date instead of living together?”
“You’re not turning my father into a gemstone, Mom,” Harlan stated grimly.
She stared hard at him for a long moment. “I know. That’s what I just said. I’m not doing that. And yes, Brooke, I’ve thought about it quite a bit. I’ve got Emily and Chloe living at my place, and that puts a bit of a damper on spontaneity for Gus and me, if you know what I mean. We’d like a little more privacy, and like I said, it’s sort of a trial run. If things don’t work out, I’ll just move back to my place.”
“Okay, so what happens if you get rid of everyone’s ashes, and then move home? Won’t you regret that they’re gone?” Personally, I’d never been a fan of keeping those ashes around in the first place, but they’d been there for so long, moving them now seemed cold.
“I don’t think I’d regret it. Not really. I mean, Conroy was always a slob, even when he was alive, and I have to admit, I’m tired of dusting him. And Harlan, your father would be just as happy if I simply dumped him out in our vegetable garden. Speaking of that, here’s another option. You can send the ashes off to some company that will turn them into a pod that you bury in the ground, and then a tree grows from it. I could turn them each into a tree.”
“You’re not dumping my father out into the vegetable garden or turning him into a pod. Don’t you think that would be a little . . . undignified?”
She turned and scowled at him. “Harlan Callaghan, you are being disagreeable just for the sake of being disagreeable. I’m trying to come up with a solution to a problem, so how about this? This is what I really want to do with them anyway, and this is what I’ll need approval from the council for.”
I felt myself bracing for impact.
“Fireworks.”
“Fireworks?” I said as my dad pushed his plate away and crossed his arms, falling back in his seat with a thump.
“Yes, I love this idea,” Gigi said with a grin. “We have their ashes loaded into fireworks and then launch them off into the sky, where they explode into a magnificent shimmer of beauty before floating gently back down to the earth. Or in this case, they’ll land in the lake, which all three of them would approve of. Isn’t that a fabulous idea?”
Harlan rubbed a hand across his face. “You want to turn my father’s remains into a firecracker?”
“Not a firecracker. Listen to my words. A beautiful, wonderful . . . celestial shower of shimmering lights. I think it sounds magical.” Gigi was getting her Irish up, her frustration with Harlan visibly growing.
It didn’t sound magical so much as it sounded weird, but then again, it was a little strange to have them all sitting on the mantel, too. Especially considering Gigi liked to decorate the urns for the holidays. My grandfather had been wrapped in tinsel, holly, and evergreen boughs. He’d had Easter eggs tucked behind him, and once in a while, if she remembered it was his birthday, she’d move his urn to the kitchen table, where we all had to eat cake while staring at it. All things considered, maybe Gus had been wise to say the dead husbands were not welcome in his home.
“I’ve contacted the company,” Gigi continued, “and they can have the fireworks created and back to me in five or six weeks, which I’m hoping will be just in time for New Year’s Eve. Wouldn’t that be special? Ring in the New Year by sending them off in such a dramatic fashion? But of course, I can’t launch fireworks without some help. I mean, I could, but I’m trying to be responsible. Aren’t you impressed with me?”
“I don’t like any of these suggestions,” my father said. “Can’t we just take them to the cemetery like normal people?”
“The cemetery is so boring. This is their last great adventure. I say we send them off in style. Now all I need is for you two to get the council to approve it, because I’ll want to have some sort of dedication right before we launch them into space. You just remind those council members that I didn’t even have to ask for their permission, you know. I could have just asked Percy O’Keefe to launch them off Bent Rock, and no one could have stopped me.”
My father looked at me from across the table, resignation all over his face. Gigi was tenacious with a capital ten.
I shrugged. “I guess there’s no harm in asking.”
“It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” my dad said, “but I know you, Mom. Now that you’ve sunk your teeth into this idea, you’ll drive me crazy until I ask. So, yes, I’ll run it past the council, but I’m also going to ask Father O’Reilly. There may be some sort of special permission we need to get from the church, you know.”
“Rats!” She snapped her fingers. “I never thought of that. Okay, well, the next time you’re playing poker with O’Reilly, make sure you let him win a few rounds before you ask him, and give him a few drinks, too.”
“Plying a priest with alcohol and money will not change the teachings of the church.”
She scowled. “Since when did you turn into such a Bible-thumper? I didn’t raise you that way.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Did I? Well, good for me then, but in this case, I need the church to have a little flexibility. See what you can do.”
“There you are!” The door of the restaurant banged against the frame as Emily came in looking flushed and annoyed. Wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, she still managed to look glamorous. It was so annoying. She strode over to our table, hands on her hips. “Dad, why is my work crew in jail?”
“Good morning to you, too, Emily,” he said, sipping his coffee.
“Yeah, good morning. Why did you arrest my entire construction crew last night? I got to the work site this morning, and the only one there was Georgie, and she said that the rest of them were in jail.”
Harlan chuckled. “Technically, yes, they are in jail, but no one was arrested, and they’re free to go.”
Emily visibly relaxed and slid into the booth next to me. “I don’t understand. What happened?”
“The details are a little sketchy,” Harlan said, “but from what my deputy could make of it last night, the boys were celebrating Tiny’s impending fatherhood by plying him with shots of Fireball. Lots of shots of Fireball. He finally passed out at the Mustang Saloon, but since all the horse taxis were in for the night and he was too damn heavy to carry home, they dragged him by his feet across the street to the jail so he could sleep it off there. I guess the rest of them were either too lazy or too drunk to go home, too.”
“So, no one is in trouble? They can all come to work today?”
Harlan laughed again. “Sure, they can all come to work, but I wouldn’t expect much from them. They were a mess last night. And Tiny probably has a powerful headache from the Fireball. And the curb. And the steps into the station. No power tools or saws today, okay? I don’t want somebody losing a limb.”
Emily shook her head in dismay. “Great. That’s just great. I need to start building days into the construction schedule to account for their shenanigans and hangovers. Geez. Give me those pancakes.”
She reached for my plate, and I handed her my fork before someone got hurt.