AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Eileen made a disgusted face and waved him toward the garage. “Go on then, you weirdo.”
“You’re still my number one,” Cody said as he went to the garage door and punched in the code on the number pad.
The door rolled up, and Cody smiled as he took in the wide back end of the tan mid-70s Cadillac Sedan de Ville. He lightly ran his hand along the vehicle’s side, savoring the smooth glide that still remained from a few weekends before when he’d spent hours in Eileen’s driveway, washing and waxing and listening to Eileen gripe about all the water he was wasting “on that jalopy.” Cody had focused on his work, not rising to Eileen’s bait. Hell, he’d even bought some special cleaner and worked more than an hour to get the white vinyl roof looking like new.
Earlier in the summer, he’d discovered he had inherited the Cadillac from the Widow Monroe. At first, he’d been pretty angry and frustrated. What the hell was he supposed to do with a car longer than his truck that managed half the gas mileage? But the more he drove the Caddy, and the more the car saved not only his life, but the lives of those he cared about, the more Cody came to appreciate it. He didn’t think it was some kind of living, mechanical thing like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or Herbie the Love Bug. He’d seen a lot of crazy stuff the last several years, but he wasn’t going off the deep end thinking some old car was alive. It was more an acknowledgement that Geraldine—okay, yeah, he had had to give her a name, but a lot of people named their cars—had pretty much saved his bacon quite often. With the widow behind the wheel, of course. Although, Cody wasn’t entirely sure the widow knew what she was doing even half the time she’d been driving, so maybe Geraldine had made some choices while the widow had been swerving her way through town?
“You done creaming yourself over that car yet?”
Eileen’s raspy voice carried easily into the garage, intruding on Cody’s mood. He sighed, patted Geraldine’s hood, and whispered, “I’ll come back soon and take you out for a spin, old girl.”
He paused just outside the garage for one more look at her before hitting the button to allow the garage door to roll back down.
“Just so you know,” Cody said as he approached the front porch. “No one says ‘creaming yourself’ anymore.”
Eileen humphed around the stem of her pipe. “Fucking kids and their fucking TikTok. They’ve lost all trace of the classics.”
Cody chuckled as he sat in the chair beside her. “What do you know about TikTok?”
“Hey, I’m not dead yet, dammit. I still know a thing or two.”
“That’s for sure.” Cody was quiet a minute, then asked, “Do they offer yoga classes at the activity center here?”
“You thinking about joining?”
“No. My grandma said something about a yoga teacher who works with them in the nursing facility.”
“That would be Molly. She’s a pretty thing.” Eileen gave him an assessing look. “You wanting to pinch hit on your old team?”
“What? Come on, Eileen. I’m a married man.”
“Just checking. Why are you asking about Molly?”
“Grandma said Molly had been singing to her outside her window. I thought that was a little more odd than usual.”
“More than sharing her gummy bears with Valentino?”
“I know, I know. This just felt different, I guess. Never mind.”
They sat in comfortable silence for a bit, looking out at the neighborhood of accessible condos that made up the independent living section of the Parson’s Pines Senior Living Collection. A group of white-haired women powerwalked past the condo, chatting and laughing as they clutched two pound weights and pumped their arms. Cody waited for some kind of snarky comment from Eileen, but she didn’t say anything, and, he had to admit, he was a bit disappointed. Birds chirped and chased each other between trees, and somewhere in the distance a lawnmower rattled to life.
“You worried about the case?” Eileen asked.
“Trying not to be,” Cody said. “But I was served papers today. The Woleks are suing me in a civil case since the criminal case was dismissed. Not a big surprise, but still, it pisses me off. And, being the delicate and kind human beings they are, they’re talking smack about us all over town, which has led to a noticeable drop in calls.”
“Not that case.” Eileen waved her hand as if easily dismissing one of the worst things that had ever happened to Cody in his life. “Dieter’s got all that legal stuff handled. I’m talking about the wonky business with that woman drowning out at Parson’s Pond.”
“Good God, Eileen, how do you even know about that?”
“Hell, everyone knows about it.” She pointed the stem of her pipe at him. “And from what I’ve heard tell, there’s a lot that’s hinky about it.”
Cody leaned forward and put his face in his hands. “Goddammit, Eileen. When you start using words like ‘wonky’ and ‘hinky,’ that usually means we’re going to wind up in the middle of another batch of weirdness. And I really don’t have the patience or brain space for that right now.”
“You’re pretty, but sometimes you’re also pretty dumb.”
Cody looked at her. “What the hell?” He made a puzzled face and cocked his head. “And, thanks, I guess?”
“How long’s it going to take you to realize this whole damn town is one big batch of weirdness?”
