Legal Murder

chapter:21

She didn't have the time or energy to change out of her sweats, so she simply slid on blue Converse and pushed her arms into the sleeves of her wool coat. Dixie didn't look at all like the fourteen year old girl she'd been four months before when she stepped into her first social studies class. She looked older- or maybe that was just the glow of confidence and purpose that she'd picked up on her journey of fighting for justice.

The house keys that dangled between her fingers made a cheerful jingle as she thundered down the stairs. The sound reminded Dixie of Christmas, and the thought of being alone on her favorite holiday made her heart constrict. She stopped the jingling sound by locking the front door behind her. She felt the muddy slush of almost-snow through the thin rubber soles of her shoes. Her eyes gravitated up towards the dimly-lit, December sky. 

"Dixie Simmons? Is that you?" A voice hollered from across the street. It was a familiar-looking woman with short, red hair, and a wide, pleasant smile. She was dressed in scrubs and had a stethoscope resting around her neck.

Dixie dropped her head from staring at the clouds and recognized the woman almost instantly. "Celine?"

"I thought that was you," The smiling nurse exclaimed, pulling her front door closed and walking across her dying lawn to greet Dixie. "I chatted with your dad during my shift yesterday, and now I feel like we're old friends. He told me all about you, and he said you guys live on this block."

Small world. Dixie thought while returning Celine's smile. "I'm sorry we've never met. My dad and I used to make apple pies for new neighbors, but then we had to stop because he found out he was allergic." She crossed her arms around herself to contain body heat, "Allergic to apples, that is; not the new neighbors."

Celine crossed the street so they didn't have to holler, and chuckled slightly when they were both standing by the mailboxes. "That's okay, sweat heart. My daughter and I don't really like apples anyway."

"You have a daughter?"

"Her name's Lidia. You look about her age. What school do you go to?" Celine pulled her cardigan, that matched her purple scrubs, farther over her shoulders. 

Dixie's eyes widened. "Um, I go to Riverdale High. I think I might know your daughter." She held back a grimace as she ran images of the bitter girl through her mind. Lidia was the one girl in her social studies class that never cooperated. She was always the one that argued loudly with Dixie, and told her her ideas were a waste of time. Lidia wanted to be Dixie's enemy. "She's really nice."

Celine's expression became the grimace that Dixie thought she was politely holding back. "Well, I appreciate the sentiment, but I fear we're talking about two different Lidia's."

"What's yours like?"

"Harsh, temperamental, confusing... Lidia has become a different girl these past few months." She sighed and leaned back into her heels. "I hardly ever see her without her stupid Ray Bans on, and she spends more time in the mirror than she does actually attempting to look presentable. I just don't understand her."

Dixie raised an eyebrow. She'd never really thought much about what Lidia might be going through. She'd been quick to think the worst of Lidia simply because she put up a tough front. Everyone at school thought she wore her sunglasses indoors because she thought she was cool- but maybe the truth was the exact opposite. "Have you tried talking to her?"

"Millions of times. If you ever hear a lot of banging coming from across the street, you can bet money that it's Lidia slamming a door in my face." The lines of worry printed onto her forehead were like tragic headlines on the morning paper. "Anyway," Celine forced a grin, "I'm sorry- I didn't mean to unload on you or anything. I know you have your own troubles what with your dad in the hospital. Where are you off to by the way?"

"The coffee shop down the road from here." Dixie nodded into the distance.

Celine flicked the cuff of her sleeve up in order to check her watch. "It's already five forty. I should probably get to work soon."

"Okay, Mrs..."

"Call me Celine. I prefer it. It makes me feel younger than I am." She winked before turning to cross the street. When she stopped at the driver's door of her little white car, she looked over at Dixie who was about to traipse off down the sidewalk. "Dixie?"

"Yeah?" She craned her neck to the left.

"If, by some miracle, you figure out what Lidia's hiding, you'll tell me, right? I really need to know what's wrong with my daughter." Celine's tear-stained eyes glistened under the beams of the pink sunset, and disappeared as she blinked away her emotion. "Promise me you'll tell me. Please. Can you do that for me, Dixie?"

She chewed on the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. "Of course, Celine." Good memories of her dad kept circulating in her mind, "Just take care of my dad, okay?"

Celine offered a sincere nod as a sealing of their deal. Then she got into her car, turned over the engine, and backed out of the drive way. Dixie remained glued to the sidewalk for a full minute as she watched the red taillights of Celine's car vanish around the corner. She wondered what could be so dark and despairing that Lidia Weeks couldn't tell her own mother.

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Lauren was mid-macaroni-pouring when her cellphone started to vibrate and dance off of the kitchen counter. Ginger was in the middle of chopping lettuce, but stopped in time to catch the erratic phone before it shattered to pieces on the linoleum.

Ginger checked the caller ID before handing it to her sister, "It's Steve."

Lauren swiped the green answering button and cleared her throat, "Steve?" She kept her phone positioned between her ear and her shoulder as she continued to make a pasta dinner.

"Remember on our way to the convention you saw that doctor leaving an abortion clinic?" Steve was in his car, staring at a business card he'd gotten out of the phone book. 

"Yeah..."

"Well, since my dad lives in Florida and he hasn't spoken to his brother in ten years, he didn't know where he was living. Turns out, Uncle Lester's been here in Riverdale for the past three years and I didn't find out about it until yesterday." Steve flipped the card over and read the phone number in his head. "I looked up some names in the local phone book and found Lester Caldwell's. I ended up getting his business card, and called him a little while ago. Can you meet us at the coffee shop in like, ten minutes?"

Lauren tilted her head to the side and dried her hands on a dish towel. "Uh, I guess so." Then she considered it for a moment, "I mean, this is all great and everything, Steve, but how does rekindling a relationship with your uncle have anything to do with the random abortionist I saw leaving that clinic?"

Steve dropped the business card onto his dash and looked through his windshield to see a man he hadn't laid eyes on in an entire decade. "That random abortionist is my uncle."