Checkered Crime: A Laurel London Mystery by tonya kappes Page A

shame. Not to her, but to me. Sally Bent cleaned a toilet better than anyone I had ever seen. She loved doing all the chores, but when she left, Trixie said I had to do it. I didn’t want to do Sally Bent’s chores and mine.
    You need to learn how to cook and clean so you can get married one day , Trixie would say . Little did we realize no one wanted to date me, let alone marry me.
    No one in Walnut Grove. Given my background, I could hardly blame them. But I was on the upswing. I could feel it. Plus I had been on my best behavior over the last five or so years.
    Damn . Wasn’t that long enough to prove I was good?
    “Sally Bent, huh?” Jax hesitated before he opened the door. “Well, Laurel, it was a pleasure.”
    “All mine.” I smiled and watched him walk up to the window. His backside was just as nice as the front. “Yep, pleasure is all mine, ”I said under my breath before I took off toward Cow’s Lick Creamery.
    I was in the mood for some of their homemade raspberry chocolate chunk ice cream. I still had a few hours to kill before I could officially go back home. Even though I lived alone, Trixie somehow knew if I was home early or late.
    “Dang.” I hit the wheel when the only light in town turned red.
    The door opened and someone jumped in.
    “I need to go to Porty Morty’s.” The woman slammed the door and adjusted her cutoff jeans before she tried to pull down the cowl neck crop top that was so popular in the 90’s. Her long grey hair was covered in a tin foil hat. “Laurel London? Is that you?”
    “Trixie!” I was just as shocked to see her as she was to see me. “What in the hell is on your head?”
    I wasn’t about to ask about the clothes. I already knew where those had come from…the orphanage. It wasn’t a big secret and everyone around town knew Trixie didn’t buy her own clothes. She just wore all the orphans’ hand-me-downs.
    To this day she still refused to buy clothes that were not only in the current trend, but that were to fit her age of seventy years old.
    “Watch your language! Who the hell’s car is this? Laurel, please don’t tell me you stole it.” She jumped out of the back of the car, ran around it, and then hopped in the front seat with me. It was sort of like playing the Chinese fire drill game but with a slightly crazy old lady.  “I got a phone call from Mr. Chiconi.” She did the sign of the cross.
    “Why do you do that? He’s not dead and we aren’t Catholic.” I rolled my eyes.
    “His father is dead. Bless his soul. He was a good man.” She tsked. “By the looks of things, he’s right and I wasn’t so sure about Sally Bent’s claim of you being a woman of the night, but now I’m starting to believe her too. It’s those aliens, I’m telling you.”
    Trixie dipped her head, shot her eyes to the sky and looked out of the front windshield.
    “Lady of the night? As in prostitute? Aliens?” I questioned. Who was she calling lady of the night? She was the one in the skimpy outfit. “Are you drinking in the middle of the day?” I asked.
    I’m going to get that Sally Bent for good this time. I made a mental note.
    “Mr. Chiconi said you were driving some big yellow car and a man was in the car. A stranger .” Her eyes were big and blue. Her skin was fair and with very few wrinkles. I was sure it was from all the sunscreen she used and doused the orphans with. When they came up with the slogan, big things come in small packages, I believe they had Trixie in mind. She was a spitfire. “Where is he?” She pulled a knife out of her hot pink handbag — that I was positive came from the Salvation Army drop box — and slashed it through the air.
    There were many times we’d stake out the drop-off site of the Salvation Army donation dumpster. Not only was Sally Bent a good bathroom cleaner, she was tiny and would fit right in the dumpster. Trixie would send Sally sailing over the top and into the pile of donated stuff.
    Sally always came out with