Money Matters

 Uncle Charlie and Aunt Maddie were getting older, as everyone does, but they weren’t going to let that stop them, much to the dismay of their family.

Traveling was one thing. If people have the time and money, why shouldn’t they travel to every place they’ve ever wanted to go? But what Uncle Charlie and Aunt Maddie did after they got to their destinations was quite another.

Ziplining in Costa Rica.White water rafting on the Colorado River. Hiking in Montana and Italy. No doubt these were fantastic, action-packed experiences. But Uncle Charlie and Aunt Maddie were 87 and 85 years old. They had no business risking their well-being by galavanting all over the world and going on these wild adventures, family members thought.

“What if you’re doing the Tour du Mont Blanc and one of you is injured? Katie, their niece, asked. “How would we take care of your medical needs? How would we get you home?”

“We have very good travel insurance.We don’t want or expect anything from you kids,” Uncle Charlie said, still referring to his 30- 40- and 50-year-old nieces and nephews as “kids.” 

“Just let us have a good time while we can,” Aunt Maddie said.

“And enjoy the pictures,” Uncle Charlie said. “We’re both getting to be pretty darn good photographers.”

“We are,” Aunt Maddie said, then chuckled. “But it’s not hard to take good pictures when you’re taking some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.”

“True,” Uncle Charlie said. “Maybe we should enter some of the pictures in some contests before we head off to Tokyo.” 

“Tokyo?” Katie and the other nieces and nephews asked in union after gasping, also in unison.

“What’s wrong with Tokyo?” Aunt Maddie asked.

“Nothing’s wrong with Tokyo,” Nephew Joe said. “It’s just that …”

“Tokyo is just so …” Niece Cathy started, but couldn’t think of anything either.

“It’s crowded and hectic and loud and …” Nephew Alan started.

“We don’t care what reasons you come up with,” Uncle Charlie said. “We’ve also wanted to go to Japan and that’s what we’re going to do. Tokyo will basically be only our home base anyhow. We plan on exploring as much of the country as we can in 10 days.”

“Ten days?” Katie asked.

“Yes,10 days,” Aunt Maddie said, “and we’re going to pack as much as we can into those days.”

“We don’t understand any of this,” Cathy said. “Why can’t you stay home and spend time with us and our children and grandchildren?”

“We’re spending time with you now,” Aunt Maddie said. “Renting these houses on the Outer Banks was a wonderful idea for a whole family vacation. We should do this every year.”

“That’s the plan,” Joe said. “We’re simply concerned that with all these high-risk adventures you’re going on you won’t always be here to share these vacations with us.”

“There will come a time,” Uncle Charlie said, “that we won’t be here. You do understand that, don’t you?”

“Of course we do,” Joe said.

“Then just let it go and live with whatever happens,” Uncle Charlie said.

Not wanting to waste anymore time debating the issue, the nieces and nephews accepted defeat and made their way to the beach where the rest of the family had been for hours.

When the others had left Uncle Charlie and Aunt Maddie gave each other knowing looks. They knew the family was less concerned about their well-being than they were about the whittling down of inheritance money. They did have to give the nieces and nephews credit, however, for not mentioning money in any way.

Not mentioning money was the only thing that kept the nieces and nephews in Charlie’s Maddie’s good graces. They would mention that in the letter to be read at the reading of the will for whichever one of them passes last.

What no one except their lawyer, their accountant and state lottery officials knows is that three years ago Charlie and Maddie won a multi-million dollar lottery jackpot. It was that, and not their life savings, which was quite significant before the lottery win, they were using to travel to every place they’d ever wanted to go.

If the nieces and nephews kept their mouths shut about money, once Charlie and Maddie were gone, they’d be able to follow their dreams, too.

But They're Everywhere

 Laura had been alone in her apartment for days. 

She’d been content catching up on her reading, adding to her scrapbooks and deciding which new photographs she should display on her walls. The reading and the photographs were her favorite things to do inside her apartment. Reading had been her favorite hobby for as long as she could remember. The photographs she took of family, friends and nature simply made her happy.

But Laura knew the time was coming that she was going to have to leave the apartment. It was Thursday. She had to be back at work after her vacation on Monday. Even before that, though, she knew she was going to have to venture outside and then to a store to buy deodorant and some food. Her refrigerator and cupboards were leaning toward being bare, although she knew she could make due for a couple more days.

She called her friend Maggie and asked for some advice on how to find some motivation – other than the deodorant and food – to get herself out of her apartment.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just shower, get dressed and go out,” Maggie said.

“I’m afraid to go out,” Laura said. “What if I see a Cybertruck? It’ll make me think of how stupid people are. I mean, why would anyone with an ounce of sense buy one of those ugly things?”

“Seriously, Laura?”

“Not only that,” Laura said, “I’d start thinking about Musk and how evil he is. I’ve been able to chill out and stay calm for a few days now. I don’t want to ruin it.”

“Having something like that ruin your mood is your own choice,” Maggie said. “You can tell yourself not to let it bother you. It doesn’t affect your life so why should it upset you?”

“What do you mean it doesn’t affect my life?” Laura asked. “The stupid people are the ones who voted for dismantling the Department of Education, cutting Medicaid, which will more than likely close our hospital, tax cuts for the rich and a tax increase for the rest of us. And don’t get me started on Alligator Alcatraz! A concentration camp, Maggie! A concentration camp in the United States of America in the year 2025.”

“C’mon, Laura. You’re overre …”

“Don’t even tell me I’m overreacting,” Laura interrupted. “Every bad thing that Hillary predicted back in 2015 has happened, or is close to happening. The only things she got wrong are that ‘deplorables’ isn’t a strong enough word to describe and there’s way more than just a basket of them. It’s more like a giant warehouse full.”

“But still,” Maggie said. “You don’t have to keep everything that’s happening from letting you lead your life. All we can do is go about our daily lives and hope things change after the 2026 mid-terms.”

“I wish I could be that optimistic and dispassionate.”

“You could be,” Maggie said.

“I don’t think so,” Laura said. “It’s not in me to ignore the news and, by watching or listening, I get the terrible feeling that we might not even have mid-term elections. What if he declares a state of emergency, declares martial law, and cancels the elections? I wouldn’t put it past him.

“Then, of course, we have his brainless followers. How the hell can they not see who and what he is? Don’t answer that. I get it. I get it. He hates the same people they hate and they put him in a position to do something about it. What if I’m behind a couple of them while I’m in a store’s checkout line and they’re talking about some bullshit thing Dear Leader said like it makes even a little bit of sense. 

“I just can’t with these people anymore, Maggie. I just can’t.”

“Realisticly, though, you know you’re going to have to encounter and deal with them for quite a bit longer, right?”

“I know. I know,” Laura said. “I realize that even after he’s six feet under, which can’t come soon enough, by the way, his followers are going to have to be deprogrammed and that will take quite a while because some of them are so far gone that it really is sad.”

“You know what else is sad?” Maggie asked. “All that’s happened over the last 10 years has stolen your joy. You used to be so upbeat and optimistic.”

“That does make me sad, too,” Laura said. “And I was joyful for a few months last year. Then came the night of November 5. I think part of my problem is that I’m still in shock from that night.”

“Could be,” Maggie said. “But you're also strong and resilient. You need to find some joy again and the best way to do that is go out, ignore the stupid and live your life. And don’t be afraid.”

“I’ll try,” Laura said. “But I will continue to be afraid of what I might do if some red hat-wearer mentions the price of eggs.”

Joe and Gina Return (Not the Title. Not Even the Working Title.)

 

Gina Hamilton Manzarelli is a former newspaper reporter and an amateur sleuth, who has helped police solve several crimes over the last 20 years. She’s married to Joe, a lawyer whose best friend was murdered, although it was originally ruled a suicide. That was the first crime Gina helped solve, and what brought Joe and Gina together.

Today, Gina is a novelist writing fictional accounts of the crimes she covered as a reporter. Joe is the county district attorney. 

Gina can’t seem to get that sleuthing bug out of her system, though, so when she learns of the deaths of six St. Bonaventure University students she knows she has to investigate. 

Being a university alumna, and having worked at the nearby and closely related Franciscan Sisters of Allegany for several years, Gina’s presence on campus is not viewed as unusual. Most people who know her also know her background as a reporter so they don’t see anything unusual in her asking questions about the deaths.

Original speculation in the community was drug overdoses or accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. Because the police weren’t giving out much information, all people could do was speculate.

A couple of days pass before police confirm the deaths were murders, but they don’t provide much more information than that.

Frantic family members and scared community members get wind of Gina’s investigation and go to her with questions, clues and answers because the police are saying just enough to placate them, but not enough to give them any confidence that they’ll solve the crimes.

After talking with dozens of people and reading numerous theories online, Gina thinks she knows the motive for the murders. After a bit more digging, she thinks she may know who the murderer is.

It wouldn’t be a Joe and Gina story if Gina didn’t find herself in some kind of jeopardy, so that is part of the action as well.

Also, it wouldn’t be a Joe and Gina story with their son Zach and his daughter from a previous marriage, Katherine. After the first story, Katherine has been only a minor player but she once again has a major part in helping to solve the case. As in the first story, she also finds herself in a dangerous situation.

This is a story that’s ripped from the headlines, but with a couple of twists thrown in. 

First, Strawberries

 Gina knew a marathon housework session was in order before Joe got back from his business trip, but she just wasn’t ready to start that. She had too much other work to do.

For one, the manuscript she promised to proofread was just sitting on her desk, unread. Gina and Henry, her agent, agreed that she would finish proofreading and get it to her editor before the end of the week.

It was Thursday. How would she ever finish reading in two days? She contemplated telling a little fib and saying she had done the proofreading when she really hadn’t. She never understood an author proofreading her own work anyway. She knew what it was supposed to say and, in most instances, read it as what she meant to say and not the mistake. Besides that, every time she proofreads her own work she finds something she might want to edit and overthinks her decision on whether to leave it or change it.

She stood at her desk staring at the manuscript thinking about how archaic actually printing out pages of a novel on paper seemed these days. While it was old-fashioned, and wasted paper in her opinion, she had to admit reading a physical copy would be easier – and seem less like work and more like reading a book – than reading it from a screen.

As she weighed the housework versus proofreading options she looked past her desk and into the kitchen, where she saw a bowl of fruit sitting on the counter. That fruit reminded her that she had strawberries in the refrigerator. She decided eating a bowl of strawberries would be the perfect way to relax while figuring out what task to choose first. 

For the Best

Emma was relieved. To tell the truth, she was more relieved than she wanted to admit. And she would not admit it to her friends after he told them he cancelled their date at the last minute.

Her friends told her it was time to get out there again, she shouldn’t be wasting away all by herself, there was still plenty of life left to live.

She wouldn’t call reading whenever she wanted to, or getting back to acrylic painting, or journaling, or catching up on her scrapbooking “wasting away.” They were all self-care techniques and she was absolutely sure they were more effective than going on a date with a guy she had barely talked to since high school.

Emma also thought it was kind of creepy that Mark called to ask her out less than six months after her husband passed away. Not that there was an official mourning period anymore; it just seemed odd. Her friends didn’t think so, though. When she told them Mark asked her, they all told her to go for it because they weren’t getting any younger.

But is 54 old? Emma thought to herself. No. At any rate, she decided to go on the date with Mark if for no other reason than to keep her friends quiet. 

After reading his text – Yes. He cancelled their date at the last minute by way of text. – she decided not to tell her friends right away. She’d wait until tomorrow when they asked how the date went. 

When tomorrow came she learned rather quickly that she wouldn’t have to tell her friends he cancelled. The reason was staring her in the face when she went to the local newspaper’s website. Mark had been arrested for money laundering and was currently in the county jail awaiting a preliminary hearing. He’d been denied bail because the district attorney argued that he had the money and means to flee the country.

Emma could sense there was something off about Mark the day he called to ask her out but she couldn’t put her finger on it. But why would she think the nerdy guy from high school would turn out to be a crook? Allegedly. 

At least she could put that very brief, almost non-existent, chapter behind her.

She went to her art studio, where she got out a small canvas and the brushes and paint she would need for her next creation. Daffodils were not only one of her favorite flowers, they were a symbol of renewal, and that sounded perfect to her.

It's Not About the Peacocks

 It was July 30 and Elizabeth and Axel hadn’t gone on a picnic yet this summer. While going to a picnic spot near water when the temperature in their northern Pennsylvania town had been climbing past 90 degrees for days, they couldn’t seem to find the time or energy to leave their apartment except to go to work.

“We’re home. We have air conditioning. I’m not going out in that heat again,” Elizabeth said yesterday after work.

“I’m with ya,” Axel said, “so I hate to point this out, but we’re almost out of food.”

“How can that be?” Elizabeth asked. “We never run out of food.”

“I should be more specific,” Axel said. “We do have food but we’d have to cook and, I don’t know about you but, I don’t want to get anywhere near a stove until at least October.”

“We could finish off that cold pizza you brought home from work yesterday,” Elizabeth suggested. “Then tomorrow after work we could stop at the store on the way home and pick up enough ready-to-eat and doesn’t-need-to-be-heated food to last us until this heat wave passes.”

“Works for me,” Axel said. “While we’re at the store, why don’t we pick up some picnic food? Maybe we’d feel better and be less crabby if we went to someplace where we could be near water for a few hours.”

Three days later – on Saturday – Elizabeth and Axel got out of bed bright and early packed a picnic cooler, grabbed some blankets and beach towels, extra clothes, and the books they were reading and headed for the Kinzua Dam area, where they would stake out a spot on the beach and, possibly, go on a hike at Rim Rock or Jake’s Rocks later.

In the middle of the 45-minute drive to their destination, a large bird flew in front of their car and seemed as if it might hit the windshield. Axel swerved the car slightly but didn’t even come close to losing control. He didn’t even leave his lane.

“Thank God it was you driving and not me,” Elizabeth said.

“No kidding! Remember that time we had to stop in Bakersfield and we were walking around that park?”

“Hart Park,” Elizabeth said. “Don’t remind me.”

“That was five years ago. You still can’t laugh about it?”

“No, I can’t,” Elizabeth said. “Peacocks scream and squawk very loudly. It was scary.”

“And when you screamed, it was scary for everyone else,” Axel said, laughing.

“Ha ha,” Elizabeth. “Very funny. I can’t believe no one stuck up for me when I asked who would expect peacocks in Bakersfield, California?”

“That is what Hart Park is most known for.”

“Excuse me for not doing research on Bakersfield, California, prior to our impromptu visit that lasted all of two hours.”

“No need to get testy,” Axel said.

Elizabeth couldn’t think of a witty or snippy retort so she stayed silent. These days it seemed that was the best way to deal with Axel. Ignore him and maybe he’ll go away. Or at least shut up.

Small Business is Murder

Belinda and Kim’s finances were stretched as thin as they could possibly be.

They knew running a small business would be hard and, most likely, not very profitable in the beginning, but they didn’t foresee it being this hard.

“Realisticly, though,” Belinda said as she and Kim sat at one desk in their tiny office in the back of their store, “Why did we ever think running a store and art gallery focusing on dragonflies would be successful?”

“I know,” Kim said, laughing. “What were we thinking?”

“I guess we learned a lesson,” Belinda said. “No one ever got rich overestimating the public’s love of dragonflies.”

“Forget rich,” Kim said. “I’d settle for being able to pay all our bills in full this month.”

“Maybe we should rethink our business plan?” Belinda suggested. “We could branch out into butterflies and fireflies. I mean the Firefly Festival isn’t far from here. It could work.”

Belinda and Kim worked well into the wee hours of the morning re-formulating their business plan. The sun was just starting to peek over the mountaintops when they locked up and started heading toward the parking lot.

“What we really need,” Belinda said,”is for something scandalous to happen near here that will bring in some foot traffic.”

A few hours later Belinda’s ringing phone woke her up.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Kim said as soon as Belinda whispered a sleepy “hello” into her phone.

“Kim?” Belinda asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Remember when we were leaving the store and you said what we really needed was for something scandalous to happen?”

“Yeah,” Belinda said. “What time is it?”

“Seven.”

“In the morning?” she asked.

“Yes,” Kim said. “But listen. I had barely gotten into bed when Kurt woke me up and said he’d just heard on the radio that the police are investigating a murder and the body was found in the parking lot next to ours!”

“You’re kidding,” Belinda said, now mostly wide awake. “When did they find it? Do they know who it is?

“They haven’t said yet whether they know who it is, but they found it at around 5:30 this morning.”

“That’s right after we left!”

“I know!”

“The dead body might have been in the parking lot next door when we were getting into our cars!”

“I know!”

“Holy crap!”

“I know,” Kim said. “Other than who the dead person is and who got them that  way, the biggest question now is: How do we make this work to our advantage and get some people into the store?”

All Wrapped Up?

 Heidi and Jack had fallen into a rhythm, and it didn’t take long for it to happen. After the third time it seemed so natural.

This was their first Christmas together and they both knew it was going to be the first of many. They both knew from the start they were destined to be together. Neither one of them had ever believed in love at first sight, until they saw each other at opposite ends of the bar on a Thursday night. 

That was 31 Thursdays ago. This evening, as they sat in front of the fireplace in Jack’s house, they decided since they already had most of their Christmas shopping done they might as well start wrapping presents. They gathered all the gifts and put them on the dining room floor, then gathered all the wrapping supplies and placed them on the dining room table.

The original plan was for each of them to take a gift, wrap it, tag it and move on to the next gift. As Heidi placed a gift in what would be the “finished” pile, she glanced toward Jack and her jaw dropped. She couldn’t recall ever seeing anyone wrapping a present in quite that way. If anyone asked she wasn’t sure she could even describe what she was seeing. Why was he using so much paper? Heidi wondered. And she knew some people had a hard time cutting straight but the way Jack was doing it almost seemed as if he was deliberating cutting in a zig-zag pattern. Heidi didn’t think it was cute, however, at how hard he was concentrating. He was biting his lip and furrowing his brow as he watched the scissors move along the paper. She wasn’t sure if she should feel sorry for him or laugh.

At any rate, she knew she couldn’t watch him struggle with any more presents. That’s when she suggested they split the tasks on every gift they were about to wrap. She would handle the paper and the tags. He would handle the ribbons and bows.

The effects of the new plan were evident almost immediately. Jack’s brow unfurrowed, he loosened up and he was smiling again. That was until he got up to go to the kitchen and bring out another bottle of wine. On his way back to the dining room, he tripped and, as he was trying to catch himself and keep from falling, he knocked an empty wine glass off the table. He was upset until Heidi told him it wasn’t a big deal. It was only one glass and he had seven more just like it.

Jack smiled, kissed the top of Heidi’s head and asked if she would mind continuing the gift wrapping while he dealt with the broken wine glass. She said of course she wouldn’t mind. She didn’t tell him she would actually prefer to do it by herself. Although the team approach was working well, she realized she liked wrapping presents by herself.

As Jack knelt on the floor cleaning up the glass, he picked up one of the larger pieces and held it up to Heidi. “This would make a good weapon, don’t you think?” he asked.