Not Alone: A Lorena Johnstone Thriller by Axel Blackwell

Author:Axel Blackwell [Blackwell, Axel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-10-23T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-NINE

“You set me up,” Johnstone said, sliding into the padded vinyl booth across from Mama Elm.

She was still angry about the other woman’s conniving, but she was equally amused by it. The two had slipped away from the crowd, dispersing along with all the other women who had attended the vigil, leaving the cops and the Karens to work through their issues.

“I did, didn’t I?” Mama Elm said, her eyes twinkling. “What I'm wondering is, why do you seem so upset about it?”

Before Johnstone could respond, a server with ‘Beth’ on her nametag asked for their order. She looked like she was a few years past sixty and made out of toothpicks. When Mama Elm ordered a decaf coffee with lots of cream, Beth eyed her suspiciously.

“I'll have to make a fresh pot. Might be five minutes,” Beth said, as if warning of some grim calamity. Then she amended, “No trouble for me if it's no trouble for you.”

“That’ll be fine, hon,” Mama Elm said.

Johnstone said she'd have the same. She had just a moment to wonder about the course of the woman's life, how she ended up spending her golden years working the midnight shift at a low-end diner. But she didn't have the emotional bandwidth for that train of thought just now. She tried to catch up with their interrupted conversation.

“I’m not upset about it,” she told Mama Elm. “Just, how about a little warning next time? I don’t like surprises.”

“If I told you what was going on, you would’a started trying to control everything, would’a messed it all up,” Mama Elm said. “Sometimes you just gotta let stuff happen.”

Johnstone was tired, sneaking up on exhausted. Her nerves teetered between frayed and frazzled, and the adrenaline she had been riding for the last hour was ebbing away. “That doesn’t really work for me,” she said.

Mama Elm bellowed a surprised laugh, startling the other customer in the diner. “Of course, it don’t when you don’t let it,” she said, once she got her giggles under control.

“You nearly started a brawl in the middle of Broadway,” Johnstone retorted. “Right in front of the cops and Channel 5. What would that have done to your cause—you showing up on TV getting arrested for punching some PTA mom?”

“I didn’t punch anybody,” Mama Elm said with a shrug of her huge shoulders. “Even if I did, she had it coming… But I guess that don’t matter; still would’a looked really bad. Good thing you were there to save the day.” She winked.

Johnstone shook her head, fighting hard to maintain her anger, but losing that battle. Mama Elm’s crafty recklessness had accomplished everything Johnstone had wanted—humanizing the victim, gaining the trust of the witnesses and the people who knew Candy, and kicking the legs out from under any momentum the Karens may have been gaining with the community. Both women knew it, though Johnstone didn't want to admit it, and Mama Elm was kind enough not to state it overtly.

“You might be surprised to know this,” Mama Elm said, “but I have never in my life played volleyball.

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