'I'm having a vision,' Grandma Bella said, her eyes rolling around in her head. 'I see fire. A terrible fire. I see rats escaping, running from the fire. Big, ugly, sick rats. And one of the rats has come back.' Bella's eyes snapped open and focused on me. 'He's come back to get you.'
'Omigod,' Bitsy said. 'Omigod. Omigod!'
'I need to lay down now. I always get tired after I have a vision,' Bella said.
'Wait,' I said to her. 'What kind of a vision is that? A rat? Are you sure about this vision thing?'
'Yeah, and what do you mean the rat's sick?' Grandma Mazur wanted to know.
'Does it have rabies?'
'That's all I'm going to say,' Bella said. 'It's a vision. A vision is a vision. I'm going home.'
Bella whirled on her heel and walked to the door with her back ramrod straight and Joe's mom behind her, scurrying to keep up.
Grandma Mazur turned to the cookie tray and picked through the cookies, looking for a chocolate chip. 'I tell you a person's gotta get here early or there's only leftovers.'
We were both dripping iced tea. And Grandma Mazur's nose was red and swollen.
'We should go home,' I said to Grandma Mazur. 'I have to get out of this shirt.'
'Yeah,' Grandma Mazur said. 'I guess I could go. I paid my respects to the deceased and this cookie tray's a big disappointment.'
'Did you hear anything about Michael Barroni?'
Grandma dabbed at her shirt with a napkin. 'Only that he's still missing. The boys are running the store, but Emma Wilson tells me they're not getting along.
Emma works there part-time. She said the young one is a trial.'
'Anthony.'
'That's the one. He was always a troublemaker. Remember there was that business with Mary Jane Roman.'
'Date rape.'
'Nothing ever came of that,' Grandma said. 'But I never doubted Mary Jane.
There was always something off about Anthony.'
We'd walked out of the funeral home and down the street to the car. I looked inside the car and saw a note on the drivers seat.
'How'd that get in there?' Grandma wanted to know. 'Don't you lock your car?'
'I stopped locking it. I'm hoping someone will steal it.'
Grandma took a good look at the car. 'That makes sense.'
We both got in and I read the note, your turn to burn, bitch.
'Such language,' Grandma said. 'I tell you the world's going to heck in a handbasket.'
Grandma was upset about the language. I was upset about the threat. I wasn't exactly sure what it meant, but it didn't feel good. It was crazy and scary.
Who was this person, anyway?
I pulled away from the curb and headed for my parents' house.
'I can't get that dumb note out of my head,' Grandma said when we were half
a block from home. 'I could swear I even smell smoke.'
Now that she mentioned it...
I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw flames licking up the backseat. I raced the half block to my parents' house, careened into the driveway, and jerked to a stop.
'Get out,' I yelled. 'The backseats on fire.'
Grandma turned and looked. 'Danged if it isn't.'
I ran into the house, told my mother to call the fire department, grabbed the fire extinguisher that was kept in the kitchen under the sink, and ran back to the car. I broke the seal on the extinguisher and sprayed the flaming backseat. My father appeared with the garden hose and between the two of us we got the fire under control.
A half hour later, the backseat of the Saturn was pronounced dead and flame free by the fire department. The fire truck rumbled away down the street, and the crowd of curious neighbors dispersed. The sun had set, but the Saturn could be seen in the ambient light from the house. Water dripped from the undercarriage and pooled on the cement driveway in grease-slicked puddles. The stench of cooked upholstery hung in the air.
Morelli had arrived seconds behind the fire truck. He was now standing in my parents' front yard with his hands in his pockets, wearing his unreadable cop face.
'So,' I said to him. 'What's up?'
'Where's the note?'
'What note?'
His eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
