* * *
Church of the Saviour in Cleveland Heights is a magnificent house of worship. Gothic in design, it fronts on the full block between Bradford and Monmouth Roads and reaches toward heaven with a tower chock-full of bells. Forty-seven to be accurate. Weighing thirteen tons. I loved everything about those bells.
For the five years of my unfortunate marriage, this church was my Sunday morning haven. When I sat in my customary spot, steeping my sad crankiness in the glow of the stained glass, the rolling chords of the big pipe organ, and the welcome, reaching out from the membership, I felt as if I’d arrived safe home.
This afternoon, as Otis and I slipped into a pew midway back, in the shadow of the stone arches, I felt as if I’d never left. It reminded me of my Buddha. My Buddha reminded me of it. There’s a place in the heart recognizes a home when it finds one.
The church wasn’t jam-packed with mourners for Rudyard Kipling Wade, but it was a respectable showing. He hadn’t been nice, but his family went all the way back in the history of the congregation.
His father was there. And his mother. He’d had a mom and a dad. On this occasion they were the wreckage of a handsome, well-to-do couple. His brother—Older? Younger? No clue—was sitting next to the mom. They’d been ushered in as the service was beginning. The dad carried a white cane.
The cover of the little program ushers were handing out showed a Kip several years younger than I’d seen him last Wednesday evening, walking with a big brown guide dog. The dog made me like him more. I was prepared to discount the only five to seven disagreeable minutes we were ever going to spend together. Except for Tito Ricci and his shooter, nobody could have dreamed a week ago that Kip would be here this afternoon on a carved pedestal in a tasteful urn. I’d been next door to his last half hour and it was still hard for me to take in.
I drifted along on the familiar current of the service. A lovely solo of “Take My Hand Precious Lord,” by a man I’d not seen there before, the appropriate scripture readings by a couple of young cousins. After that there was a hymn and then Robert got up to talk about his brother. I noticed the Frost part of his name was omitted from the program.
At first, he seemed more nervous than sad. I guessed he wanted to do a good job, comfort his parents, make his brother-in-absentia proud. He was smart and well-spoken. He told a little story about how his kid brother had created major disarray in his confirmation class by expressing serious reservations about, “well, just about everything. He was like that. Always doubting. Always battling. Always at odds. He was so brilliant, so tough. I thought he’d mellow as we went along.”
He paused for a long moment as the bones of the old church clicked and shuffled like they do. “So. We’re here for him today and we’re very shocked and sad he won’t have the time to find the joy he had coming to him—”
His voice broke. I’d forgotten to bring tissues. Otis passed me a clean hanky.
The minister was a new guy since my time. He was young and radiated intelligent kindness. He didn’t make me feel terrible about myself. He said things that would comfort a sad believer. And he told Robert that he believed Kip would find the joy he had coming to him. It was hard to tell if people were encouraged by this. Attendees of funerals are almost always polite and undecipherable.
When the service was over, everyone headed to the parlor to shake hands with the family and have refreshments. Methodists excel at refreshments. After all, they get a lot of credit for the invention of the potluck. Little sandwiches, meatballs on toothpicks, and rafts of cookies. Lemonade and coffee. I wasn’t hungry so I queued to express my condolences, figuring Kip’s people wouldn’t have a clue who I was. I was right about everyone except Robert.
I shook his hand and said, “I think your brother would have liked what you said about him.”
And he said, “You’re Allie Harper. We need to talk.”
* * *
The chapel was empty so we ducked in there. I could tell Otis was pleased to get me into an enclosed space with doors a bodyguard could stand guard over and see both of.
We picked a pew and sat sideways, facing each other. Robert resembled Kip without the hard, angry edge, and the dark glasses. Also Tom somewhat. I knew from experience that a warm understanding is possible without eye contact, but it helps. We sighted humans believe we can figure out a person by looking into his eyes. It’s all guesswork.
“I didn’t get to know your brother, Robert. I only…met him…for a few minutes Wednesday night. He was…outspoken. But I could tell he was very intelligent.”
He smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile but there was a spark of humor in it.
“He was a royal pain in the ass, Allie. You want to know the whole story about the membership class? He totally blew up the discussion of heaven and hell. Said you’d have to be a—expletive-deleted since this is a chapel—moron to believe any of that crap. And he didn’t say crap either. Nobody there would have beaten him up for what he did or didn’t believe but he took himself out of the discussion by dismissing faith in anything as being naiveté. Stomped out. The next time he came to church was this afternoon. In a vase.
“What happened, Allie? I know you’re on the inside of this somehow. You must know something. I won’t tell my parents anything they can’t bear and I certainly won’t be quoting you, but they need some kind of explanation. Kip had been talking about a genius business guy he’d run into at The Happy Dog on Euclid. He hung out there a lot. Ubered to get around town. Uber was a godsend for him. Anyway, guy’s name was Tito, I guess. Like the vodka. I never got a last name. Was he—was Kip—really murdered because he looks—looked—like Tom Bennington? Is that possible?”
Possible? The first time I ever kissed Tom Bennington, we were interrupted by a woman’s voice, reciting Tom’s winning lottery number. How could I tell Robert Wade I could trace a line of cause and effect from that moment to his brother in the vase?
Straight up, Allie.
“It’s possible, Robert. I’m so sorry. Actually, It’s probable.”
“So, your Tom is responsible for…this?” Angry color bled onto his face.
“No. He’s not, Robert. My Tom is responsible for buying a Mondo Mega ticket to show a kid in our neighborhood that gambling doesn’t pay. To protect him from it. The odds were—You have an idea, I’m sure.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Don’t even try. The day I met Tom, he was an associate professor of English lit at Case. A handful of hours later he was ‘The Blind Mondo.’ No chance for anonymity. Not even on that first night. Because of the way the news got out. And where it got spread to. Which was all over Greater Cleveland. The MondoMegaJackpot is the devil’s own game.
“If I hadn’t seen it up close from the beginning, I would never have understood how the simplest thing can create a chain of events you’d never predict. You can’t stop it. Or control it. All I wanted that night was to kiss Tom. All Tom wanted was to say to the kid, ‘Look, Rune. We didn’t get even one right number.’”
Saying Rune’s name out loud brought it all back and spilled the sadness of everything that had happened into my voice. How we’d planned to adopt him. How I’d pictured us as a family. How we were too dangerous to even see him now. Before I could shove it back into place, I was sobbing. At least I still had Otis’s hanky. I used it for the mopping up.
“I’m sorry, Robert. I’m so sad for you and your folks. I’ve been watching this for almost two years. So much violence. So much greed and ugliness. So many people have died—”
“So, Kip was at the wrong place at the wrong time? Mistaken identity?” At least he didn’t sound so mad.
“No. We don’t believe so. It was more than that. We think Kip was set up. We don’t know how or why. We think the…person was waiting for him. Specifically.”
“Money.” He shook his head. “It had to be money. Kip was on fire about a ne
w treatment. Expensive. Experimental. Maybe a pipe dream, but he could never give up on seeing again, and he believed people like him and my dad were… are… getting their vision back. Dad would have helped him but he’d lost a lot when the economy fell apart. And he’s realistic. He’s been blind a long time. This Tito person? Why would he want to kill Kip?”
I could see it better. Tito had preyed on Kip’s oversized ego and his terrible loss. Offered him his sight back. Didn’t have to deliver the money to pay for his chance at sight, because, from the beginning, he was planning to kill him. As a power-play message for Tom.
Here was at least a partial explanation for Kip’s outburst that last night. How come you’re not a big philanthropist, you sorry son of a bitch?
No way on God’s green earth was I going to tell Robert the truth about the why of Kip’s murder. “Nobody knows for sure, Robert. The investigation is ongoing.”
Well, that sounded like a lame police briefing. “We’re pursuing all available leads.” Giving him zilch. Robert shot me a look loaded down with skepticism, but he didn’t press. A person can walk the perimeter of something he doesn’t want to know and never step over the line. I do it myself.
“What will happen now?”
“The police will continue their investigation.”
“They’ll tell you what they find?”
“At least the high points.”
“Are you working with them. I heard—”
In spite of my opinion that Tom’s money was well-used trying to solve “mysteries of the heart,” I was not going to discuss the T&A in the chapel of a United Methodist Church with a guy who’d already invoked, “expletive deleted” to spare the empty chapel’s delicate ears.
“Tom provides funding for investigations sometimes.” Strictly speaking, this was true. Patti Stone fluttered through my mind like a bat in a black dress. I waved her away.
“Robert, we’ll tell you whatever we find out that isn’t restricted by legal stuff. And you can decide what to share with your parents.”
“Promise? Even if you think I can’t handle it. I can.”
“Promise.”
I offered him my hand, and he held onto it for a moment before he let it go, capturing my gaze with his. Then he reached into his coat suit pocket and pulled out a card. “Call me when you know something. Anything at all. And I’m sorry I lashed out about Tom.”
I shook my head. “No worries, Robert—” I glanced at the card. “You dropped the ‘Frost,’ huh? I dropped the ‘Alice Jane.’”
He smiled a little, his eyes looking somewhere far away. “Yeah. And Kip always said he’d dropped the ‘udyard.’”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
7:00 p.m.
In spite of our circumstances—unstable, unpredictable, and probably dire—it was fun to watch Jay Sawyer on Tuesday evening arriving at the realization we’d been coming to terms with since yesterday.
His face matched the dazed incredulity in his voice.
“Allie? You’re telling me she didn’t hide his body anywhere? Because it’s not—he’s not—dead? Patricia is not the murderer? He is. But nobody’s dead. At all. Yet.”
“Uh huh. He’s one of those wannabe murderers, Jay. Our specialty.”
Margo, Bright & Bouncy.
The T&A was her natural habitat. From her perspective it was mostly gossip, thrills, and parties. Any memory of terrible discoveries, terrifying fireworks, or a party better described as a wake, she would suppress. Tonight she had us exactly where she wanted us.
The T&A met in Margo’s atmospheric living room last summer for a quick detour from our main, inaugural, Lloyd case. It didn’t appear to be an opportunity for disaster, but somebody died anyway. The blast from that detour deafened Tom for a long day and night and still re-echoed in my chest. Not loud. Not over. An ordeal can end without being healed. The plan we devised in Margo’s living room that warm June evening, blew up in our faces, and did major damage to my cute, sassy spirit.
Tonight was supposed to be another minor detour for the T&A. Our most recent case was in scary limbo, a waiting game. The sniper had our attention, but he hadn’t outlined next steps. Olivia had freed us up for reading and Netflix, but I couldn’t sit still for more than three minutes. Time for a diversion. I felt curiously relieved to have something—anything—new and different to focus on. Numb, maybe. At least I wasn’t wearing my funeral dress tonight.
Present and accounted for: The full, unabridged complement of the T&A Detectives. In the order of our tenure, Tom & me, Otis, Valerio, Margo, Lisa, and, due to his pivotal role in our new case, Jay.
Except for Margo and Princess, Margo’s vast, black mastiff, and Valerio, whose car was already here for some reason, we’d arrived together. The T&A now totaled seven. For tonight, at least, we were The Full Escalade.
Three of Otis’s security team had preceded us and were now in strategic positions. I didn’t know exactly where, but I was sure they weren’t staked out in Margo’s garden tonight. This was prudent because Margo’s garden had been cancelled tonight. On account of snow.
One can never over-emphasize the staying power of the phrase, “March in Cleveland.” Or how it can be applied to a full spectrum of weather options, ranging from “seventy-six degrees and sunny” to “WTF?” The word “Armageddon” comes into play, in the company of modifiers not found in the Book of Revelation.
However, even the national weather folks were caught off guard when a late-winter storm they’d promised would merely “batter the East Coast” took a spiteful turn and came battering on in across our great lake. Winds gusting to forty-five. “Snow, up to twelve inches.”
Peek. A. Boo.
“Lake effect storms” usually hauled their excessive inches on up to Shaker Heights and dumped them there, but this one was an equal-opportunity dumper, borne on the full force of an icy wind.
Margo’s cottage was cozy-warm, wrapping us in its lush, comforting glow. The house shuddered in the wind, though, and, from the base of the cliff at the end of her property, waves thundered and growled. Their collisions sent tremors up from the foundation to the soles of my feet. Tough to ignore.
Margo’s big, weathered kitchen table must have served a family of Vikings back before Vikings were only a football team. It accommodated the new, expanded T&A comfortably with no elbowing. Margo was at the end closest to Mabel, her vintage Maytag oven, so she could supervise whatever was bubbling in there, and dominate the discussion as much as possible.
Valerio sat at the right hand of Margo. I was tucked in between him and Jay. Otis got the other end, Lisa and Tom the other side. The Princess Vespa didn’t require a chair as long as she could rest her head somewhere on Tom. I shared that sentiment.
Jay was grappling with his new reality.
“But Patricia’s such a bitch,” he moaned, “and I’ve hated her for so long. Allie, you’ve met the real her now. Was I right?”
“Yeah, painfully right. But, Jay, this is your case. If Steve is clever enough to kill Patti so Heidi can inherit—
“Oh, well. Heidi.” Jay’s expression gave up maybe fifty percent of its skepticism. He rolled his eyes. “Heidi’s in on this? Now you’re telling me something I can work with. On the evil scale from Steve to Heidi, Patricia is a four. Steve is now a six. And Heidi is a fifteen. The two of them as a team? Off the charts.
“Steve is a human bludgeon. Blunt but useful. Heidi’s a unprincipled, over-indulged babe. Steve is putty in the clutches of a babe. We should consider Steve to be ‘The Pawn of Heidi.’ And therefore ‘Heidi’s Human Bludgeon.’
“You make it sound like a cheap thriller, Jay.” Lisa was wearing her combative, detail-oriented-reporter face, and her eyes were on target, the way they got when a juicy headline might be in the room.
“Way cheaper now that I know Heidi’s on board. Lisa.”
Jay was m
aking eye contact with Lisa in a way that made me reassess my first impressions of him. Margo was checking out her old Chardonnay-swilling bud, Jay, as if a new day were dawning on her horizon too. This signaled the imminent arrival of an unscripted and bound-to-be-memorable Margo-ism. I sat back and waited. Tom, blind and psychic, waited with me.
“Jay. Aren’t you gay? You know I like to fix people up but you always—”
“Yeah, Margo. I love you too, and you always, always like to fix people up. How many stories have I heard about who would be perfect for whom? And ‘how kismet’ is it Allie and Tom are so right for each other? And blah, blah, blah. I’ve witnessed how your matchmaking works out when it self-destructs. I figured I was better off letting you cling to your inaccurate assumptions.
“So, look. It’s no big deal. I’m an interior designer with a well-developed sense of style. Also a pragmatist. It doesn’t hurt my credibility—or my feelings—if my clients assume I’m gay. It helps me fend off awkward advances.” Jay and I exchanged an episode of eye contact that spelled out P-a-t-r-i-c-i-a in the air between us. “If you have someone in mind for me, Margo, I might be grateful. My dad would thank you too.”
Otis and Valerio were managing their expressions for opacity. Lisa was looking over at Jay like he hadn’t shown up on the Lisa-Meter and now he was at least preregistered. Margo was taking offence at the “And blah, blah, blah,” but almost over it. New possibilities were arising. She was observing Jay and Lisa with an expression that needed its own cable channel.
I couldn’t see Princess, but I could tell Tom was rubbing her ears, so I figured her mighty mastiff head was driving his leg, slowly but surely, into the floor.
Just another ordinary evening with the T&A.
Lisa. Businesslike. “What happens now? Do we vote? We agree that this woman, this Patricia-Patti, is a bi—has a lot of undesirable and unlikeable traits. I’d like to go on record that many men have those as well, except we talk about guys differently, but I’m prepared to let that go. For now. Sounds like your Patti is in real danger, Jay, and none of us wants her to be murdered. How do you usually proceed?”
The Devil's Own Game Page 19