Path Of The Wicked Part 2

Deuteronomy 8:3 (NIV) Cooper opened the cupboard in her tiny kitchen and inspected its contents. She had twenty minutes to cook and eat something for breakfast, but she had forgotten to restock bananas as well as maple and brown sugar oatmeal from Food Lion after work yesterday. She was also fresh out of eggs and Honey Bunches of Oats. Luckily, her mother lived mere yards away and was likely to have some leftover breakfast available for her oldest child.

Closing the door to her apartment, which was located above her parents' detached garage, Cooper walked over the flagstone patio toward the back door of the Lees' cozy, one-story house. She noted that the herbs in her mother's container garden just outside the kitchen were starting to look tired. The rosemary was leggy, the basil was stringy with brown-pocked leaves, and the oregano still seemed parched, even though it was clear that it had been recently watered.

"The end of summer," Cooper remarked to Columbus, their caged hawk. Columbus blinked his eyes lazily at her. "You must be full because you're not giving me your special 'let's go hunting' look. Daddy must have taken you for an early walk, huh?"

The red-tailed raptor turned his head away as though bored by Cooper's presence. "You must have found a nice, fat field mouse to be giving me such a cold shoulder." Cooper smoothed down the silky feathers on the back of the hawk's neck and then moved away from the aloof bird, who had become a member of the family two years ago. Columbus's wing had been fractured by a bullet while he was roosting at one of the county airports. The hawk's a.s.sailant was never found, but the heartless attack on the majestic bird had been written up in Richmond Times-Dispatch. Within minutes of reading the story, Grammy was on the phone to the authorities at the airport, demanding that they allow her to adopt the injured bird.

"Earl," Grammy had said upon replacing the receiver, "you gotta build me an aviary. And I mean right quick."

Cooper's father, Earl, was Grammy's only child. He was a gentle, taciturn man who rarely denied his mother anything. When she wanted to live in his den instead of a retirement community, he agreed. When she wanted to go to bingo on Wednesday nights, he drove her and waited in the car until she was done. When she attracted every stray dog, cat, or turtle as well as all the injured birds, rabbits, and baby squirrels into their rural home, Earl simply sighed and drove to Wal-Mart with a list of the supplies his mother needed in order to nurture and heal each animal.

Grammy's current menagerie of wounded creatures included a cat blind in one eye, a Canadian goose that had nearly been strangled by one of the plastic rings from a six-pack holder, and a motherless fox cub that had quickly become addicted to sc.r.a.ps from the Lee dinner table. The only animals ever to become permanent members of the family were Columbus and an enormous, tetchy, and tailless orange tomcat called Little Boy.

The injured animals were only given temporary haven with the Lees as Grammy intended for them to either return to their natural habitats or be adopted by local families. In order to avoid becoming too attached to her dependents, Grammy never gave names to the animals she cared for. Naturally, the rest of the Lee family applauded her knack for attracting all creatures great and small. The only time Earl ever commented on the furry, feathered, and scaled friends gathered in his yard was when Grammy fed the fox cub her son's serving of crisp bacon.

"I'll tolerate everythin' but the givin' away of my bacon," he announced at the table as Grammy sheepishly wiped her greasy hands on a paper napkin. Since then, the fox cub had to make do with less sumptuous fair such as chicken thighs or portions of fat trimmed from Maggie's rump roast.

There was no sign of the fox cub as Cooper entered the kitchen that morning and, though she could smell cookies baking, no scent of Earl's bacon lingered in the air.

" 'Mornin', my girl," Maggie Lee greeted Cooper while removing a tray of round cookies from the oven. "You on the prowl for some breakfast?" she asked as she placed the tray on a wire cooling rack.

Grammy looked up from her Reader's Digest and pointed her thick magnifying gla.s.s at her granddaughter. "You see Columbus? He's lookin' mighty pleased with himself."

Cooper sat across from Grammy and smiled. "He fluffed his feathers and looked at me like I was chopped liver."

"He woulda looked at you with a whole lot of interest if you were a slab of liver," Grammy countered.

"Good point. Then he made me feel like a piece of broccoli." Cooper reached for the word-scramble puzzle book Earl routinely kept at the center of the table. "What'd he catch this morning?"

"A rabbit the size of a Thanksgivin' turkey," Grammy replied with a proud cackle. "Not bad for a bird that can barely get high enough in the sky to make a real dive."

"He must've killed hundreds of pigeons when he lived at the airport," Cooper remarked.

"Their best hunter. Not a doubt in my mind." Grammy picked up her magnifying gla.s.s and shook it angrily. "Whoever shot him will have to face judgment one day, along with all folks who are wicked to G.o.d's innocent creatures!"

"There, there." Maggie put a soothing hand on Grammy's bony shoulder. "Would you like to sample one of today's bakin' mistakes, Ma?"

The wrath in Grammy's hazel eyes drained away immediately. "What kind've you got?"

"Iced lemon cookies," Maggie replied, placing several chipped cookies in front of Grammy. As Grammy began to eat, Maggie returned with two slices of raisin bread coated with a generous layer of cream cheese and a cl.u.s.ter of plump, green grapes.

"Thanks, Mama." Cooper squeezed her mother's flour-and sugar-dusted hand. "This is much better than anything I'd have dug up at my place."

"You'd best fine-tune your cookin' skills, girlie," Grammy stated, her mouth stuffed with cookie. "You gotta get that boy from your Bible study on the line and reel him in. Best way to do that is to feed him and make him dream of more meals to come."

Cooper's neck turned pink, a telltale sign that she was embarra.s.sed. She put a hand over the heated skin and looked at her mother, who was sliding the cooled cookies onto a large sheet of waxed paper.

"What else are you bringing to the sandwich shops today?"

"The regular stuff," Maggie answered. "Chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, and some white macadamia nut, but I figured some folks would prefer a lighter cookie, so I'm adding the lemon. It might be the end of August, but the air still feels like the inside of a fryin' pan to me."

As Cooper ate, she watched her mother slide two chocolate chip cookies into a plastic bag decorated with a Magnolia's Marvels gold foil sticker. She then tied the bag with a thin, gold ribbon and placed it into her delivery basket. Maggie hummed as she worked, and though she rose before dawn every morning to bake the gourmet cookies that were purchased by several cafes around Richmond, she looked as fresh, red-cheeked, and round as one of the McIntosh apples on the windowsill.

Cooper finished her breakfast and brought her dishes to the sink, but her mother waved her off before Cooper could even turn on the tap. "Go on, honey. I know you gotta get to work and you know I've got a system for everything that goes on in this kitchen."

"Yes, Mama." Cooper kissed her mother's cheek, which smelled like milk chocolate and cinnamon.

"You gonna see that Nathan boy this weekend?" Grammy asked before Cooper could get out the door.

Cooper hesitated. "Not on a date or anything. We're volunteering together at Door-2-Door Dinners on Sat.u.r.day."

"Oh, how nice!" Maggie exclaimed, removing another batch of lemon cookies from the oven.

Grammy tossed her magnifying gla.s.s down in disgust, her wrinkled face creasing further as she frowned. "You callin' that 'nice'?" she argued. "Ain't nothin' like a bunch of cranky old folks to douse the heat risin' between a man and a woman." She fluffed her spa.r.s.e hair, which had been recently been given a loose-curled permanent in order to appear thicker. Cooper thought her Grammy's white locks now resembled a c.u.mulus cloud and tried not to grin as her grandmother dispensed advice with a wiggle of her gnarled finger.

"You listen to me, granddaughter. I've been around for near eighty years now and I know a thing or two. If you're gonna run around town deliverin' food to old coots, fine. But afterward, you make sure you go eat somewhere with that Nathan. Someplace filled with young folks in the prime of their lives. Last time I checked, you were thirty two years old and livin' with your parents. If you wanna change that, then change yourself." She pulled out a catalog from beneath her pile of newspaper pages. "I've been savin' this for you. Thought it might give you some ideas."

Cooper accepted the catalog without looking at it, kissed Grammy's forehead, which felt a bit like Maggie's parchment paper, and headed out to Cherry-O. Inside the cab, she took a quick glimpse at the catalog Grammy had given her before turning on the engine.

The cover portrayed a woman with impossibly long and perfectly tanned legs leaning against an open window as a pair of sheer white curtains lifted in the breeze. Her arms were raised gracefully above her head and her hips were c.o.c.ked to one side, as though she were about to sit down in a chair. Her sun-kissed hair flowed over a pair of narrow shoulders and barely covered the black ruffles of her lacy bra. Her panties were made of the same black lace, and were so miniscule that they failed to cover most of the seductive curves of the woman's smooth, round b.u.t.tocks.

Feeling her neck grow warm again, Cooper dialed up the air conditioning and tossed the catalog onto the floor in front of the pa.s.senger seat. "Only my grandmother would give me a copy of Victoria's Secret," she muttered.

When she pulled into the Make It Work! parking lot, Cooper decided to shred the catalog using the machine kept in the break room, so she stuffed it into her workbag and, after greeting a daydreaming Angela, headed into the locker room to change into her uniform shirt. Both male and female employees shared the locker room, so Cooper always changed her clothes inside one of the bathroom stalls. As she busied herself transferring the silver b.u.t.terfly pin her grandmother had given her from her T-shirt to her uniform shirt, Emilio strutted into the locker room.

Without bothering to see whether anyone else was present, Emilio peeled off a dingy white T-shirt that emphasized his developed pectoral muscles. After taking an appreciative sniff of the scent of his cologne trapped within the cotton fibers, Emilio hurled the T-shirt into an open locker. He then stood, bare-chested, and, after rubbing his hands up and down his six-pack abs, decided to examine the contents of Cooper's workbag.

"Lunch, books, pens. Boring," he mumbled to himself and then came across the Victoria's Secret catalog. Flipping through the pages, his eyes grew bright. "Whoa! Now we're talkin'." He nodded in appreciation over the photographs of s.e.xy women in skimpy lingerie.

"Cooper, you little minx," he murmured in pleasant surprise as he pushed the catalog back into her bag. "Kinda makes me wonder what you're wearing underneath your uniform." He looked at himself in the mirror hanging from the inside of his locker door. "Look out," he announced smugly to his reflection, licking his full, sensuous lips in antic.i.p.ation. "Emilio's on the prowl."

After an uneventful week of repairing seven copiers, four fax machines, and two laminators, Cooper was ready to socialize with her Bible study friends. They had helped her finally get over her breakup with Drew by offering comfort, advice, and prayer. Not only that, but they had solved a murder together, and that experience had strengthened their bond to the point where they trusted each another absolutely.

In addition to the Sunrise members, Cooper's closest confidante was Angela. Lately, however, the perky secretary seemed completely absorbed in attracting the attention of their hunky new coworker. Even her customary flirtation with Mr. Farmer had waned, and Cooper worried that Angela might genuinely be interested in Emilio.

"He's all right," Cooper had responded after Angela spent their entire lunch hour singing Emilio's praises. "But he acts a bit vain, don't you think?"

"He's just young and sure-footed," Angela had replied in Emilio's defense and reapplied a fresh coat of cherry-red lipstick. "He's asked me a few questions about you," she said with a hint of crabbiness. "If you were single, for instance."

"What did you tell him?" Cooper couldn't hide her surprise.

"The truth," Angela had shrugged. "That you had a crush on someone but things were progressin' mighty slow. That all y'all had done was kiss each other-and with every st.i.tch of your clothes on, too."

Cooper's cheeks had flamed. "Angela! I don't want everybody knowing about my life outside of work! Don't talk about things I tell you in confidence to anyone in this office!" She felt bad about snapping at her friend, but she also didn't like that Angela had been acting like a different person since Emilio joined their small crew. Cooper secretly wished Mr. Farmer had hired someone a little less attractive. Maybe then, the family-like atmosphere that had existed at the office could have stayed the same. With Emilio, however, Cooper sensed impending trouble.

Shaking away negative thoughts of her coworkers, Cooper met her fellow Sunrise Bible study members on the front steps of the downtown headquarters of Door-2-Door Dinners. The squat, concrete building was teeming with activity. People streamed in and out of the double set of front doors, large trucks pulled up to the back of the building to deliver supplies, and meals were being loaded into an a.s.sortment of vehicles lined up along the entire western side of the building. Cooper looked around nervously. She wasn't accustomed to such a hubbub and wanted to locate a familiar face.

"You look like you're about to jump out of a plane," Jake said with a laugh as he joined her on the stairs. "I wasn't always a big people person, either, but in my line of work, I've learned how to deal with all kinds of folks. All ya gotta do is smile at them and you'll be okay."

Cooper couldn't imagine having to work in people's homes like Jake did. "At my job, folks don't talk to me much once they've shown me which machine needs fixing," Cooper said. "A lot of the offices where I work seem to encourage anonymity. I'm surrounded by people who sit within two feet of each other, but are all talking on the phone to someone else."

"You're lucky that you can cruise under the radar!" Jake snorted. "Me? I get dozens of bored women who want to tell me their life stories. If it's not the ladies, then it's a bunch of soft-handed men that want me to show them exactly how I do the repair like I'm some kind of home-project TV show host or somethin'. And if it ain't the house or business owners hangin' around, then I get the family pets all over me instead. Fido and Fluffy just love to smell me in all sorts of embarra.s.sin' places just when I've got my head wedged in a dark, skinny cabinet under the bathroom sink."

Cooper tried to shake off an image of Jake's pants falling down as he bent his body in two, but he caught the look on her face and shook his pointer finger at her. "I know what you're thinkin', but no one sees my b.u.t.t. I make sure my belt is real tight before I bend over, you got that?"

From behind them, they heard Savannah's clear laugh. "Housewives, husbands, and dogs watching your every move while you fight against the stereotype about plumbers and their descending pants." She chuckled and shook her head, her long braid swinging like a pendulum down her back. "No wonder you were a smoker, Jake!"

Jake's dark eyes twinkled as he looked at Savannah, who held onto Quinton's arm. "I'm not in the clear yet," he admitted. "I still gotta wear these patches-'specially if it's been a rough day."

"I eat sweets when I'm grumpy," Savannah confessed. "I might be blind, but I can find my way to a cookie jar or my secret stash of candy bars like n.o.body's business."

"You and me both." Quinton shook his head in agreement.

Jake took Savannah's free arm. "Well, maybe you two will get lucky and I'll treat you to an ice cream after our hard day of work."

"But I'm not even driving or loading," Savannah protested. "I'm just going along to talk to folks. You can hardly call that work."

"Sometimes that's what our clients long for the most," a female voice said from the top of the stairs. A beautiful woman with l.u.s.trous locks of black hair and green eyes the shade of peridots smiled at them. "Are you here for the volunteer orientation?"

At that moment, Nathan appeared around the corner of the building with Trish and Bryant in tow.

"We're here!" Trish called out and then noticed the lovely woman with the nutmeg-colored skin standing at the threshold. "h.e.l.lo! I'm Trish Tyler of Tyler Fine Properties, formerly Tyler Realty. My company is sponsoring a route for two months."

"Yes, of course. I'm Lali Gupta, the volunteer coordinator." The two women shook hands warmly. "Won't you all please follow me inside? There's a buffet table in our gathering room with coffee and cookies if you'd like to get a snack before we begin."

The group silently fell into step behind Lali. She led them to a large room filled with rows of folding chairs and asked them to have a seat. Even though she had already consumed two mugs of coffee at home, Cooper helped herself to a large Styrofoam cup, filled it with dark coffee and powdered cream, and gazed around at the other volunteers.

She was surprised at the diverse spectrum of age, economic status, and race within the room. It seemed like a representative of every walk of life in the city of Richmond had chosen to volunteer for Door-2-Door Dinners that Sat.u.r.day. It touched Cooper's heart to see a wealthy white woman draped in expensive jewelry sharing a laugh with a young African-American man wearing a shirt that was covered in paint splatters and riddled with small holes, an elderly man wielding a cane and wearing a brown fedora whispering to a young woman with Down syndrome, and a trio of older ladies talking in fast-paced, excited sentences to a pair of middle-aged Hispanic men.

"I can't believe how many people come out to volunteer," Nathan commented from his seat next to Cooper's. "It feels good just to sit here. Makes you realize that there's a lot of kindness where we live."

"That's true." Cooper gestured at the wall behind them and took a sip of coffee. "I also like the photographs."

Nathan nodded in agreement, taking a few minutes to gaze at the oversized black-and-white portraits of some of the elderly Door-2-Door Dinners clients. The portraits were headshots, and in each one, the subject stared directly at the camera. Each expression was different. Some of the men and women seemed happy and even smiled a little. Others were somber or deeply sad, but an elderly African-American lady was laughing with her mouth open, her wrinkles spread out in a fanlike pattern as she displayed her four remaining teeth. The one that Cooper kept returning to was of an emaciated old man who rested a sunken cheek against his palm as though he was too weary to hold his head up without the help of his hand. He refused to return the camera's stare and instead, gazed into the distance. His skin seemed stretched across his gaunt face and his pale eyes were tinged with an anguish that made Cooper want to reach out to him.

Beside her, Nathan swallowed hard and nodded toward the man's portrait. "I lost all four of my grandparents in the s.p.a.ce of two years. None of these people look like them, but these pictures remind me of how much I miss them."

Cooper turned to him, but Nathan had averted his eyes. "Remember how we visited Eliza last year? At first, she was just a shut-in and a stranger, but she became one of our friends." She touched his hand lightly. "I bet we make new friends here as well."

"You're right," Nathan said with a sigh. "I'm just not the greatest at dealing with new situations, but I'm glad Trish got us involved. At least I get to spend more time with you." He pivoted toward her, his brown eyes eager. Cooper lowered her coffee cup as though she might suddenly lose control of her fingers and drop it. Her heart drummed faster as Nathan draped his arm around the back of her chair. "I've been so wrapped up with this demanding client that I haven't had time to do anything fun. I feel like I've kept you on hold and you deserve better than that." His hand brushed her left shoulder. "How about, after we're done here, we-?"

"Welcome, friends." Lali Gupta spoke in a clear, mellifluous voice from the front of the room and Cooper reluctantly turned toward her. "Thank you for coming to our volunteer orientation. Door-2-Door could not succeed without consistent help from generous members of the community such as you. You will become one of over two thousand people who package, load, and deliver meals to our clients. Last year alone, we delivered over two hundred and fifty thousand meals throughout the city of Richmond and its environs and I think we'll top that number this year."

A few of the volunteers t.i.ttered among themselves over the staggering number of meals delivered each day. Cooper stared at the photographs again and finished drinking her coffee.

"It just goes to show you," someone mumbled amiably. "n.o.body likes to cook anymore."

"In addition to our elderly clients," Lali continued, "we also serve younger adults with disabilities and community members who have recently been discharged from the hospital and only require our services on a temporary basis. Those of you who have elected to adopt a route," she nodded in Trish's direction, "will get to know a handful of our clients on a personal level. This can be an extremely rewarding experience."

A giant of a man appeared through a doorway on Lali's left. His black T-shirt, which was decorated with an iron-on of a wolf riding a motorcycle, was stretched over his skin so tightly that it seemed to be digging into the flesh of his thick arms and neck. He wore pants with an elastic waist, undoubtedly because regular pants couldn't handle the circ.u.mference of his meaty legs. His huge feet, which were even bigger than Nathan's, were encased in construction boots and he had grown out his brown goatee long enough to fasten into a two-inch braid. The end of the braid was held by a pink rubber band. Cooper was intrigued by the man's appearance.

Noticing the burly biker out of the corner of her eye, Lali beckoned for him to join her. "Meet Campbell Perkins. The kitchen is his domain." She smiled at him fondly. "He's going to review how to load and label the prepackaged meals and go over any questions or concerns you might have about how long to spend at each stop, what to do if a client seems unwell, or any other issue of concern to you, our volunteers. It is our goal to do whatever we can to make our clients and our volunteers happy."

She touched Campbell on his upper arm, which was as thick and powerful as the body of an anaconda, and bowed her head. "Again, thank you for being here today. Your gift of time, and of costly gas, will fill the hungry stomachs of our neighbors. More importantly, your friendly faces will light up what might have been a lonely day for our clients. Bless you all."

As Lali walked away, Campbell cleared his throat and began his lecture on packing food into the red-and-white-checked Door-2-Door soft cooler bags. His posture and tone were reminiscent of an army drill sergeant training a fresh battalion of recruits.

"First!" he barked. "You must label every single thing that you pack with your client's name. You don't want to give a vegetarian client a hunk of meatloaf and you don't want to give a diabetic client the meal that comes with cranberry sauce, baked apples, and chocolate mousse with whipped cream. Got it?"

The volunteers nodded meekly, silently wondering how the brawny young man had come to find employment with Door-2-Door. As Campbell held up some examples of properly labeled meals for the crowd to see, Cooper felt an uncomfortable tightness in her bladder. Glancing at the sixteen-ounce cup she had just finished, she tried to ignore the call of nature and focus on Campbell's instructions. However, when he began to discuss the types of liquids the clients were served, absently jiggling a full liter bottle of spring water as he talked, a small groan emanated from between Cooper's clenched lips.

"Be right back," she whispered urgently to Nathan and then left the room by the door they had entered. Returning to the main hall, her eyes darted around in search of a sign indicating that one of the many closed brown doors concealed a restroom. As they all looked the same, Cooper began to open the doors. One revealed a closet, another was locked, and the third led to a new hallway.

Something about the sudden stillness in the hallway caused Cooper to momentarily pause, as though she might be intruding into an area not open to the public, but the mere sight of the water fountain a few feet ahead urged her onward. Finally, she found a door bearing the placard of a woman's outline. Cooper practically ripped the door handle off in relief, only to discover that it wouldn't turn at all. It was locked and therefore already occupied.

"Arrggh," she moaned and continued her quest until she ended up at a stairwell. Praying that the ladies' room on the second floor was vacant, Cooper took the stairs two at a time and found a restroom a few doors down from the stairway. All four stalls were empty and, out of habit, she chose the stall furthest from the door.

Cooper's good fortune in finding a bathroom was quickly forgotten as she reached for the toilet paper; only a shredded square remained on the roll. This would do if I were a Lilliputian, Cooper thought wryly and opened her canvas purse, hoping to find some clean tissues inside.

As she rummaged around, relieved to find a squashed package of travel tissues wedged in between the pages of her checkbook, the bathroom door opened and two women engaged in a whispered conversation entered.

"Not again!" exclaimed a voice that sounded like Lali's.

"Mrs. Jensen's daughter called. She said her mother's gold and diamond necklace is gone. It was the most valuable thing in the house."

"Is she sure?" Lali sounded desperate for the information to be incorrect.

"Positive," the other woman answered. "Mrs. Jensen kept it hidden inside a box of Ritz crackers. According to the daughter, the necklace has been there for over ten years. The daughter cleans it whenever she visits and Mrs. Jensen tries it on in front of a mirror. It's one of their regular routines. Lali, both of them are really upset."

"What is going on, Anita? This is the fourth call about missing items this summer!" Lali's voice trembled. "Nothing like this has ever happened to our clients before."

There was a pause and Cooper was afraid to move. If she made a sound now, it would be obvious that she had listened to the entire exchange, so she raised her feet off the ground and tried to be as inert as possible, praying for forgiveness for her subterfuge.

"It's not necessarily one of our volunteers, Lali. Yes, we've got people bringing those clients meals every day, but that doesn't mean that one of them is a thief. It's just a coincidence that the folks missing things are all clients of ours."

Lali sighed. "We bring them meals, fix things around the house, do yard work, light cleaning, and deliver pet food as well. Come on, Anita. None of the clients who have noticed things disappearing from their homes have anything else in common besides us. Door-2-Door is the only common denominator, so that means someone from this organization is stealing from our clients."

"But that's unthinkable!" Anita couldn't contain her anger and forgot to whisper. Her voice reverberated off the bathroom tiles and, after being shushed by Lali, she immediately softened her tone. "To steal from the old and the infirm! Who would do that?"

"They're easy targets," Lali replied, sounding sorrowful but unsurprised. "I can't picture a single member of our regular volunteer group doing anything cruel. I've seen all of their faces-have come to know personal things about most of them, but I guess we don't know enough. Someone is hiding their true character from all of us."

One of the women turned on the water in the sink and then quickly turned it off again. "I'd better clean these gla.s.ses," Anita remarked with ire. "From now on, I'm going to make it my job to keep both my eyes on all the volunteers over the next few weeks. I'm going to chat with them until I know them better and I'm going to watch them like a hawk. We can't let anything else get stolen!"

"I appreciate your help, Anita, but what about your other responsibilities?" Lali asked. "No one can get to know all of our volunteers. We operate on trust here."

Cooper heard the sound of a paper towel being balled up and tossed into the trashcan. "My other tasks can wait. I've got to figure out which one of our volunteers is the thief. I can't have this program's reputation tarnished because of one wicked individual. Somehow, I'll think of a way to flush the snake from the gra.s.s."

"I hope so," Lali agreed without sounding very optimistic. "I don't want our clients to suffer."