Free The Unraveling of Violeta Bell by C.R. Corwin

measuring,” he said. “Young, eager people with big dreams spilling out their ears.”

    “Your eyes are that good, are they?”

    “I can compete with empty stores,” he said. “But I can’t compete with Starbucks.”

    “Of course you can,” I assured him. “You’ll just have to learn how to make cappuccino.”

    “I don’t want to know how to make cappuccino.”
    ***

    “You okay?” Gabriella asked me, as we sped around another stopped city bus.

    “Just a little frazzled,” I said. “It was a crazy day.”

    Actually I was a lot frazzled. In the first place, I don’t handle the heat very well. And we were crammed into that silly yellow and black Mini Cooper her parents bought for her as a graduation gift, weaving in and out of the rush hour traffic like a pollen-drunk bumblebee. And I was worried about Ike losing his coffee shop. I wanted our lives to stay right where they were. God only knows what kind of crazy ideas he might get if he suddenly had nothing to do but make me happy.

    Gabriella zipped onto Hardihood Avenue just as the yellow light turned red. We were going to visit with another member of the Never Dulls that evening, Ariel Wilburger-Gowdy. But when Gabriella pushed the intercom button at the Carmichael House, we heard a younger woman’s voice. A cold, prickly voice. “Come up.”

    “That was certainly short and sweet,” I muttered as the door clicked and we went inside.

    “I think that was Ariel’s daughter,” Gabriella said. “I didn’t meet her when I did the story but her mother told me what a horse’s patoot she is.”

    “She said that about her own daughter?”

    “Six or seven times. Those exact words.”

    We rode the elevator to the seventh floor. It was Ariel’s daughter. She introduced herself at the door as “Professor Barbara Wilburger.” She was fiftyish, middle-of-the-winter pale. Whatever color hair she was born with, it was very black now. She apologized for her mother’s absence. “She said she’d be back by now. But when mother’s at the foundation—well I’m afraid the real world has to wait.”

    “Well, it was very gracious for your mother to invite us over,” I said. “It isn’t easy to talk about the murder of a close friend.”

    She tried to smile. “We can wait for her in the living room.”

    She led us down a hallway lined with Georgia O’Keeffe prints, into a room as big as my entire house. I absorbed as much of it as I could without appearing nosey. It was cluttered. A bit dusty. The furniture a bit old. Dozens of stained-glass hummingbirds were suction-cupped to the glass slider leading to the balcony.

    Before inviting us to sit down, Barbara batted a trio of Persian cats off the sofa. “Sorry about the animals,” she said, raking fur off the cushions with her fingers. “Mother lets them rule the roost.”

    Gabriella and I sat. Barbara didn’t. She positioned herself behind one of the matching wingback chairs, resting her forearms on the doily, rolling the cat fur into a ball.

    “You live here with your mother?” I asked.

    “No way in hell,” she said. Then she quacked a couple of “heh-heh-hehs” in an attempt to make a joke out of something that clearly wasn’t.

    I tried to remember what I could about Gabriella’s story, grist for the uncomfortable small talk that was likely to last until her mother arrived. “I understand your mother has an autographed copy of Jane Goodall’s new book.”

    “It wouldn’t surprise me. She loves all those tree huggers.”

    I tried another topic. “Gabriella’s story said you teach at the college.”

    “Business ethics.”

    “Oh my, that’s got to be interesting.”

    “Not to my students,” she said. She launched into a sour rant about how dumb and lazy today’s kids are, all the time shaking that fur ball in her cupped hands like dice in a Monopoly game. “And they’re so damn gullible,” she screeched. “They accept anything as the truth except the