Interior Motives by Ginny Aiken Page A

Cissy. Are you saying she shelled it out for him as if he still wore diapers? Is that the scoop?”
    “That’s the scoop.”
    Cissy’s disgust with the deadbeat brothers sounded sincere. I don’t know if I could stomach them either. So what was Tommy’s problem? Had his landlord begun to drum him for late rent now that Darlene was dead? I couldn’t forget his phone conversation at the showroom.
    But Bella didn’t give me a chance to ask again.
    “If Mama still paid his bills,” she said, “he’d want to keep her around, don’t you think? Is he dumb enough to snuff her? Without her around, he’s pancake-flat broke.”
    “Yes, he is.” Cissy’s satisfaction made her brown eyes livelier than I’d ever seen them. “But he never thought she’d cut him out of her will. She did it because she finally began to see the light. She felt she had to protect Jacob’s future for the day the cancer took her.”
    She fell silent, and her grief seemed real and deep. I could relate. After Marge’s murder, I struggled to get past the loss and pain.
    “Maybe,” Cissy continued after a moment or two, “Tommy made another one of his dirty deals recently, one for more than Darlene was willing to give him. And that might have led him to . . .”
    “Ooh, baby! One of his dirty deals? Does he do that a lot? How much dirt does he”—Bella shuffled imaginary cards—“deal out?”
    “He hung out with some shady characters. It felt like every other week they came up with another ‘sure thing.’ But none of those ‘sure things’ ever worked out quite as Tommy said they would, and Darlene always bailed him out.”
    On the one hand, Tommy had a pretty strong motive. On the other, maybe not so much. And Larry knew about his brother’s iffy ethics all along. Was that what Techno Whiz Kid had pulled up on the computer screen?
    Bella barreled on, and I sat back. Who was I to mess with—I think—success?
    “How ’bout that other kid?” she asked. “You know, the pocket-protector one.”
    Cissy snorted, the most unladylike sound I’d heard the plain but proper senior make. “He’s another story. He works—all the time. Or so he says. But no one knows what he does. All Darlene could tell me was that it had something to do with very innovative, hush-hush computer stuff.”
    “So this one’s not a bloodsucker leech?”
    Good grief, Bella. How subtle can you get?
    “I didn’t say that.” Cissy pursed her lips for a moment, then let out a slow breath. “No, this one begs and borrows too. But he calls it ‘investments’ in computer hardware. And he did bring the machines and strange gadgets for Darlene and Jacob to see. Not that they knew a thing about electronics, you know.”
    I figured Jacob didn’t know much of anything by then— who knew how long the poor man had been suffering from Alzheimer’s.
    Bella didn’t let up, even though Cissy seemed on the up-and-up. “But this one pays his rent and food and junk, right?”
    Cissy shrugged. “Who knows? Over the years Darlene gave him a lot of money. He could still be living off the latest sum.”
    “And when did he snooker that wad out of her?”
    Bella does have a way with words.
    Cissy paused and thought. “About a year ago. I figure he’s probably due for another transfusion into the Larry-the-Bill-Gates-wannabe dream fund. A refusal might have made him mad enough.”
    “What’s he need more for? How many computers can he want?”
    Bella had a point. Where would Larry put more computers? And he wasn’t sinking the cash into his house; the paint was peeling worse than a blonde with a sunburn. Clothes? He didn’t dress for success.
    “Larry says computers become obsolete the minute they leave the manufacturer’s warehouse.” Cissy looked uncertain. “I don’t know much about electronics, so he could be right.”
    I’d heard it said a number of times. Living in Bill Gates’s part of the country made even the staunchest of techno-phobes aware of