Dinner With A Dead Man

By CJ Hawk

Chick Lit. Mystery - Some girls have all the luck, and I'm not one of them. I've gotten myself into some really sticky situations all my life, but this one beats them all. Who can say they had dinner with a dead man? Me. That's who. Add to that, I am currently unemployed and will take any measly bone a person might throw a dog. I am licking that dog bowl for odd jobs that pay cash, as I collect my unemployment check. All this, while trying to please my mother's need to marry me off before it's too late. Between blind dates, odd jobs while looking for a job, interviews with stellar type people - not. I wind up having dinner with a blind date to only be attending his funeral by weeks end. Strange things start to happen, like my car getting blown up and mysterious large sums of money getting deposited into my account. But what I would really like to know is, do I get the handsome hero in the end or another blind date?

• Language: English
• Publisher: CJ Hawk
• Release date: Oct 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301029112

CJ Hawk

I am an independently published author that finds scraps of time to write with intentions to escape the perils of a working life while owning and operating three small businesses with my husband, raising teen boys, sixteen paws (yes four shelter dogs) and a tank full of fish that keep multiplying on their own every time we look for baby fish – free fish anyone? For all of the chaos, testing of mental fortitude, strength and intuition I have endured, I have a lot to be thankful for.Recent years have put my dedication to writing time on the back burner. There were a few major surgeries within my immediate household, to then have major changes in life in general. As of 2015, I lost my mother to the final battle of Ovarian Cancer. She was a strong independent woman that I loved deeply but often saw things quite a bit differently, yet only a mother knows, you love your child no matter what - and that love will always find a way.Between our business, teens, my mother’s cancer battle and life, I have found a renewed sense of what makes me content when the tides are trying to drown me... and that is to be creative in any whimsical way that nudges me. I am back to writing full force when time allows, painting, gardening, taking pictures, knitting or my all-time favorite thing that helped me morn my loss, scrapbooking. All of these things are so very therapeutic and to be able to share with others, gives me joy.I hope you like my books, not perfect as they could be; but life is not perfect and is meant to be enjoyed nonetheless. – CJ Hawk

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Dinner With A Dead Man

Mystery with a twist of Romance

Published by Smashwords and Copyright 2012 CJ Hawk

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Some girls have all the luck, and I'm not one of them. I've gotten myself into some really sticky situations all my life, but this one beats them all. Who can say they had dinner with a dead man? Me. That's who. Add to that, I am currently unemployed and will take any measly bone a person might throw a dog. I am licking that dog bowl for odd jobs that pay cash, as I collect my unemployment check. All this, while trying to please my mother's need to marry me off before it's too late. Between blind dates, odd jobs while looking for a job, interviews with stellar type people - not, I wind up having dinner with a blind date to only be attending his funeral within a week's time.

Chapter One

I stopped pacing my apartment while holding my phone away from my ear, then tried screaming, in an indoor voice, to the phone, thinking it might help to stop her rambling chatter if I just plain didn't listen anymore. Mom. Mom! I was wrong; she was still talking so I took a deep breath in and tried to get a word in edgewise. As soon as I heard her take an intake of breath, I interrupted my mother from continuing. Mother, I heard you. I can't possibly go out on another blind date at this moment. I reached down to my toenails and picked at them as they were in desperate need of a pedicure while my mother kept talking, more to herself about some guy named Bernard Gooth. Just his name alone reminded me of the last five men she set me up with. Bow tie wearing, white socks, dress pants an inch too short and 'where did he get those shoes' question pounding in my brain. And that last question, is not in a good way. For some reason, when my mom was handed out the mother knows best genes, she escaped the line for latest bargains at Bargain Hut. She seemed to think that since I am not married or engaged by my age of twenty nine, that I need to find me a bargain of a man to marry and soon.

Don't you talk to me in that tone Missy. That was my mother's typical response, and my name is not Missy. It's Eliza Smuthers and my friends all call me Liza. My mother, Cher Smuthers - originally Charlotte - yes she renamed her first name after the star. For me, she seems to think Missy fitted me better ever since I've given her more trouble than a life raft with holes in it. My mother has a fitting resemblance to Cher when she dies her hair black and gets a curl. Right now, her hair is blonde, platinum blonde, and I am neither. I am five foot six in height, single digits when I'm good, blessed with a rack that I did not inherit from my mom, hers were paid for. My hair is the same light brown I have always had in a cut that was very stylish, oh about three months ago, right before I lost my job. My eyes are average blue, but if you make me mad, it's like someone turned on the neon, and they glow an eerie blue color. My best friend Gail can contest to it. I have never won a pageant or been asked to be a model, not that I ever tried, that was my mom's gig. My mom was still talking while I was thinking over the finer point of how the two of us are very different in looks and personality. Which left me with a fleeting thought of what my father looked like, but I will get to him later.

And another thing... Ok here is where I walk around my apartment, listening to my mother while I toss away past-due notices of bills into the trash, get in a load of dishes and get dressed for my dog walking skit that I am due for, oh - about five minutes ago. However, that is the beauty of working with a dog, they just bark at you when they greet you. They don't care if you are late, only if you have a smile, soft hand to pet them and a leash dangling from your hand. The wagging tail and licking is about the only action I have seen in a while.

I let my mom go on for about ten minutes describing this Bernard Gooth as I tackled as much as I possibly could get done around my place without listening to a single word she just said. I finally was ready to head out for my dog walking job, so I did the only thing I knew that would get my mom off the phone.

Mom, that's my other line. I think it's that job I'm trying to get.

What other line? I didn't hear your phone beep? What job? Are you still applying at places? Did you check out that new supermarket chain that is opening up next to my house? I heard... And she was off again. My mom could talk your ear off.

Mom. It's that job. Love you. Bye. I hung my phone up before she could respond. I would pay dearly for that later but for now; I just wanted to stick my earphones in my ears, select some dog walking music and pick up Sampson and Delilah from the old couple up the street. They owned a Great Dane and a Chihuahua. They paid me twenty a week to walk their two dogs an hour a day, four days a week. I was severely underpaid by them, but those dogs were a breeze to walk. Delilah the Chihuahua, would just run circles around Sampson, the Great Dane, while he basked in the sun at the park. I sat on the bench checking the local job listings on my phone and watched this really incredibly good-looking guy who walked his yellow lab every day at this time. He was eye candy with his muscular build, tall frame, dark unruly hair and a jaw line that made my fingers want to caress it, and for the first time, I just watched him check out the guy who just walked past him. Go figure. That was my track record. Oh well.

The nice part about the Sampson and Delilah gig is the old couple up the street, the Zhestakova's, referred me to their grandson, Mark Zhestakova, to clean his house once a week. That gig paid a hundred in cash each time I cleaned, and he was a very neat guy. He too, was an extremely good-looking guy, like the man on my dog walk, but way out of my league financially. I dust his pictures around his condo, where he has his arm around women, that would put those women with a secret from Victoria's to shame.

My cell phone beeped with a text message from my best friend Gail. She had a job opportunity for me at the waste plant if I could get there in the next hour. I texted back I could make it and bent down to pick up my oversized bag that I carried with everything under the sun, including Sampson and Delilah's doggie treats to get them to head back home.

Before my hand could grab the strap, hottie man with the yellow lab caught my attention as he was yelling my direction for his dog. The very same dog, which picked up the strap of my bag in his mouth, and was running fast and furiously away from me - bag and all. The dog's owner ran past with a swift 'sorry', and I sat stunned for all of three seconds when Sampson took off running after that man's dog faster than I had ever seen him run. Delilah ran after barking, but her short little legs were no match for Sampson's, and neither was mine.

Ten minutes later, with a bucket of sweat on my body, hottie guy with the lab was introducing himself to me as Dale Earnheart, like the race-car driver, but he wasn't really a race-car driver, and he spelled his last name out for me as if I had never heard the name before. It was a bit of an odd moment when I joked, 'well it's a good thing you don't spell it the same as the famous race car driver', and he looked at me as if I was mistaken. He owned a classic muscle car shop down on Broadway, and he liked to talk about himself with a bit of undistinguishable accent. As much as I wanted to stand there and talk, I really did, even though I knew it would go nowhere; if I did not get the sweet old couple's dogs back promptly on time, they would be mad.

I found an opportunity to get a word in, to explain I had to get my dogs back and off to work. Race car man looked a bit miffed, but then, he had been checking out another man, so why should he?

Being late to a job interview is not the way to start off on a happy note. However, the guy interviewing me didn't seem to care that I was late, just that there was a canyon between the valley on my chest, if you know what I mean.

This wouldn't be my dream job. It would just be A job. Which, I desperately needed. Working in a landfill, sorting recyclable material or cleaning out the jammed conveyor belt is far better than getting kicked out of my apartment and living with my mother - you might as well jam my arm in that conveyor belt if I had to move in with her.

I had not lived with her since I was twenty-two, and that was twenty-two years of excruciating agony. Living with my dad wasn't an option, because I had no idea who he was and apparently neither did my mother. I was the proud product development of a one-night stand between a Cher look alike stand-in on an off-Broadway play and a man who looked GOOD after a few shots too many. In other words, my mom says she had no way of knowing she was pregnant with me until it was too late to let the stranger know.

These thoughts I was having about my father, who he was, what he was like, had me sitting at a green light. Just as I looked up and noticed the lane next to me moving, I barely had time to take my foot off the brake and touch the gas before... Bamn! I was hit from behind.

It took me a second, and fifty or so feet of forward motivation from the car behind me, to realize it wasn't my foot on the gas making me go forward. I stopped my car at that precise moment it all came together and put the car in park and turned it off. Lucky for me, so did several other cars around me. I got out and turned to my 'free ride' through the light and noticed the young blonde teen still texting away feverishly. Perhaps it was her parents or her BFF, whichever it was, she knew she was in BIG trouble.

I heard some strangers ask if I was all right, which I was. Well, as much as a gal in my situation would be. Broke, out of a job, about to be evicted from my apartment and going on blind date number? Well, whichever number it was, I am sure I will end up going. If anything, it will be for the free meal.

I took a look at my bumper, and my old faded blue four-door Honda Accord, with the old chrome bumper which was actually looking pretty good. It was bent down a bit but drivable and fixable for less than a hundred or two.

I walked over and rapped on the girl's window of her silver four door Corolla, just about as old as mine. Her car, well, it was going to need some work. I was going to offer to get some cash from her when she started to blame me for not going quick enough through the start of the green light. I let my eyebrows rise up past my forehead as my eyes opened like a deer caught in headlights. I felt my teeth bite the inside of my mouth with stress, and a small twitch built on my right eye. Before I could say what I was feeling deep down inside of me about teens driving that text, or texting and driving in general, I saw the flashing lights of the blue and red.

Two hours later, she got the ticket, but I got the impression that her cut-rate car insurance company wouldn't be paying up quite so fast. I didn't want to deal with it right now. I knew somebody that could fix it for free, that would be Chuckie, my best friend Gail's brother. He was the fixer of all thing's cars or motors, and he had me running on this paid off car since I bought it back in high school. Why buy a new car when a girl can buy a whole lot of new shoes or music for the price of a monthly car payment? Get where my priorities tend to be.

My apartment was hot. I had forgotten to turn on the air conditioner before I left. I managed to get it turned on just as the phone rang. I had two choices here. Stand in front of my air conditioner and cool off, or answer the phone, which might be my mom. The sound of my answering machine kicked on, and I listened to my own voice sing out how I am not available at the moment but to please leave a message. That sing song message of happy glee only took me twenty some tries before I didn't sound like I was drunk or on helium.

Eliza Smuthers. This is BLZ Landfill calling regarding your recent interview with us today. If you can give us a call...

Hello? I ran to that phone so fast thinking if I talked to them in person, I got the job. Sorry I was just walking in the door from another interview. Ah. Now I got 'em. They think I am on high demand or not going to be available soon so they are going to hire me over the phone. Besides, they don't interview twice for recycle trash line work, do they?

Twenty seconds later and a serious onset of heartburn, I got the jest. The landfill won't hire me because of very unsubstantial reasons, then the guy saves the best for last. Besides... you're too hot to work the recycle line. My guys would never get any work done with the set of knockers on your chest. Ok, so maybe wearing my low-cut dress shirt and push-up bra were not exactly my brightest ideas to a job interview. I was getting desperate, and I guess the desperation showed. Good luck on that other interview. I'm sure they'll hire you. Then he hung up as if he had no idea how not giving me a job had done me