by Mary Daheim
“Why?” Renie asked, following Judith inside.
“Because we’re going to have a drink. Our old customers may’ve gravitated to this place.” Judith headed for the nearest small table. Much of the bar was filled with men who were watching the Notre Dame football team thrash Tennessee on the big TV at the end of the room. A chubby middle-aged waitress who walked as if her feet hurt approached the cousins.
“Menus?” she asked, smiling faintly.
Renie declined, but asked for a glass of sherry. Judith said she’d have the same. The waitress made her weary way back to the bar’s serving area.
“She looks familiar,” Judith murmured to Renie. “Subtract twenty years and thirty pounds.”
“I don’t do math,” Renie replied with a sneer. “I’m an artiste.”
“Then do a visual, Madame Renie-oir.”
But her cousin only shrugged. “Rien.”
“You got zip?” Judith sighed. “Then I must know her from somewhere around here.”
“Since she’s here now, it’s likely she was here then.”
“Be quiet. Here she comes with the sherry.” Judith put on her friendliest smile. “Say, don’t I know you from the old Meat & Mingle?”
The waitress looked surprised. “You do? Oh, my! I thought I recognized you. Willie and I started this pub back in ’98. Didn’t you tend bar there? I’m Annie O’Reilly. You’re . . . ?”
Judith introduced herself and Renie. “My first husband and I owned the café. I remarried after he died.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Annie said. “Back then I worked as a cook at Peebles Place. I usually do the cooking here, but our regular waitress has bronchitis.”
“What a coincidence!” Judith exclaimed. “You must’ve known Opal Tooms, the poor woman who was murdered not long after I moved from the Thurlow District.”
Annie’s plump face darkened. “That was a terrible thing. I don’t think the cops ever found out who killed her. Or at least they couldn’t prove it.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Too bad they never asked me. I had some ideas of my own.”
“You did?” Judith responded. “Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“Willie told me to keep my mouth shut,” Annie replied. “He thought it’d be dangerous in more ways than one, given who I thought it was who done it. I needed to keep working there to save up enough money to start this pub.” She suddenly straightened up. “You knew Opal?”
“No,” Judith said. “I met her daughter recently when Serena and I were on a trip.”
Annie frowned. “I never knew Opal’s kids. A son, too, right?”
Judith nodded. “It’s not too late to go to the police, you know.”
“Yes, it is,” Annie asserted. “The person I think did it is long gone.”
Renie stared at Annie. “As in dead?”
The waitress shrugged as a roar went up from the Fighting Irish fans. “Might as well be. The funny thing is that the other day a man came in here with a woman who . . .” Her gaze veered to the football fans. “Excuse me. I’d better bring another round for old Notre Dame.” She ambled off to the cheering drinkers.
Judith checked her watch. “Time marches on along with the Notre Dame band. Polish off your sherry. Next stop is the racetrack.”
“The racetrack?” Renie practically shrieked.
“Shhh,” Judith warned. “Some people are staring. Yes . . . it’s only ten minutes from here. Don’t you remember how Dan would often go there to place a bet on a horse that usually came in last?”
“I was trying to forget,” Renie said. “I figured you’d want to see the Tooms house and maybe your old dump. I mean—”
“We can drive by the Tooms house, but I don’t want to see our former so-called home. It’s enough off the beaten track that I doubt it’s been improved. In fact, it may have fallen down.”
“It was leaning that way,” Renie said. “Literally. Gosh, all those rats that ran up inside the walls must’ve been displaced.”
Judith shuddered. “Not to mention the hookers that plied their trade on the main thoroughfare in front of the house. You’re paying. You fleeced me for lunch.”
“Okay.” Renie took out a twenty and left it on the table. Catching Annie’s eye, she made an okay sign with her thumb and index finger before following Judith out the door. “You do realize they don’t have live racing this time of the year at Greenacres, don’t you?”
“Of course. But serious track rats go to watch the simulcasts and place bets. Uncle Al does that quite often. You said it was the Breeders Cup. Maybe the trainer on Ruby’s list—Jorge Gonzales—will be there.”
“He’s a suspect?” Renie asked as they made way for a couple pushing twins in an elaborate stroller.
“No,” Judith replied. “I think he was Duke Swisher’s alibi. Heck, Duke might be there, too. I’d like to see the location of Opal’s remodeled house. It’s only a couple of blocks from where we parked.”
“What did you make of Annie’s suspicions about whodunit?”
Judith grimaced. “At first, I thought she was putting us on,” she said, smiling at a woman whose tartan jacket matched the coat on the fox terrier she had on a leash, “but her details changed my mind. It sounds as if she was afraid of getting canned. That means someone at Peebles Place, like the manager, Myrna Grissom. Maybe she died.”
“Or quit?” Renie suggested.
“Possibly. But what motive would she have for killing Opal?”
“Maybe Opal found out Myrna was juggling the books.”
Judith shook her head as they got into the Subaru. “From what little I know of Opal, she wasn’t a curious type. I wish Annie had finished what she was about to say when the Fighting Irish fans needed refills.”
“As in ‘a man and a woman came into a bar’? Isn’t that the opening line of a joke?”
Judith frowned. “Maybe the joke’s on me for not asking. Now I wonder what it was. Probably nothing important.”
It had started to rain and the wind was up, scattering a few remaining leaves from the small trees planted along the sidewalks. As they entered a residential area, Judith noted that the Toomses’ address was 4322 on their right. Renie couldn’t help but see the big numbers on a pillar near the sidewalk. “It’s Twenty-first Century Re-do,” she declared. “Lots of glass and boxlike. I hate it.”
“Right,” Judith said, slowing down, but looking across the street. “I wonder who lives over there.”
Renie turned to see an older but well-maintained Craftsman bungalow behind a white picket fence. “Why do you care?”
“Because I just saw a gray-haired woman go in the side door. I’ll bet she’s lived there for years.”
Renie leaned back in the seat. “So what are we selling? Avon? Fuller Brush? Raffle tickets?”
“Jehovah Witnesses,” Judith said, pulling over to a parking space a couple of doors down. “Our copies of the Watchtower just blew away.”
Renie held her head. “Oh God!”
“Don’t be a spoilsport! You’ve heard their spiel. We can do it.”
The rain was coming down harder and the wind was still brisk. Judith’s jacket didn’t have a hood, so she held her purse over her head until they got on the bungalow’s porch. She rang the doorbell, but at least two full minutes passed before the gray-haired old lady warily opened the door and skewered the cousins with shrewd dark eyes.
“What is it?” she demanded in a strong, sharp voice.
Judith cleared her throat. “Do you know the world is going to end in five years?”
“I certainly don’t,” the old lady retorted. “I haven’t even looked at the weather report for tomorrow.”
“We’re Jehovah Witnesses and we know what’s going to happen,” Judith stated. “It’s pretty gruesome, so you ought to be prepared.”
“Jehovah is Yaweh to me,” the old lady declared. “I’m Jewish and you’re ignorant. I’ll bet you don’t know how Yaweh became Jehovah.”
“Gosh,” Renie said in a humble voice, “we don’t. Can you tell us?”
The old lady looked disgusted. “I could tell you a lot of things, but I don’t want to waste my time.” She paused, peering more closely at her visitors. “On the other hand, I loathe ignorance in all its forms. Oh,” she continued, opening the door wider, “come in out of this rotten weather. I should have moved in with my sister in Miami years ago, but she drives me nuts. I spent a month with her years ago and all she could talk about was what she watched on TV and how many of her friends had face-lifts.”
The living room was small but cozy. A brass menorah reposed on the mantel above a tiled fireplace flanked by glassed-in bookcases. Floral drapes hung at the two windows facing the street. “Sit,” the old lady said, gesturing at a brown sofa decorated with embroidered throw pillows. “I need a straight chair. Bad back. I’m Ziva Feldstein. You two got names?”
“I’m Judith Flynn and this is my cousin Serena Jones,” Judith said, sitting down.
“Judith, eh?” Ziva said, cautiously lowering herself into the ladder-back chair by the hearth. “But you’re not Jewish?”
“Actually, the German side of the family was at one point,” Judith said. “They got run out of Russia by Catherine the Great.”
“Nothing great about her,” Ziva asserted. “How’d you get to be Jehovah Witnesses?”
Judith grimaced. “We didn’t. We’re Catholics.”
Ziva looked skeptical. “You changed religions between here and the porch?”
“The Jehovah Witness thing was a ruse,” Judith confessed. “We need your help for a friend of mine.”
Ziva’s eyes narrowed. “I should’ve guessed you were trying to hit me up for something. How much? I’m not made of money.”
Judith shook her head. “No money involved. We only want some information about your former neighbor across the street. My husband is a retired police detective and the Opal Tooms homicide was his partner’s first investigation. The case was never solved and now Opal’s daughter is trying to find out who killed her mom. Your name wasn’t included in the case notes, but you were here when it happened, right?”
“Wrong,” Ziva replied, no longer looking wary. “That is, I wasn’t here when Opal’s body was found. I’d left June seventh, the day after she was killed, to visit my sister in Miami. I was gone for over a month.”
“That explains why Woody—he’s now Precinct Captain Woodrow Price—didn’t interview you,” Judith said. “I assume nobody else was living here at the time?”
“Unfortunately, no.” Ziva paused, shifting in her chair. “My husband had died in late April. My sister thought it’d be good for me to have a change of scenery, so she invited me to come to Miami to visit. The weather there was fine until it started to get hot by the first of July and Rachel just wouldn’t shut up. I came back home. I never did hear anything about poor Opal, but then I’m not much for gossiping with the neighbors. I leave that to my sister.”
“Do you know who lives in that house now?” Judith asked. “I see it’s been remodeled.”
Ziva grimaced. “Ghastly modern style, if you ask me. It’s a young couple with more money than taste. Nice enough, but bland.”
“But you knew Opal when she lived there?” Judith inquired.
“In the way you know people you see now and then, but don’t have much in common with,” Ziva responded. “I never bothered learning to drive, so I took the bus. The end of the line is just two doors down from the Tooms house, so I’d see her sometimes in the yard when I’d go by. She worked odd hours at a nursing home, I think. I’d stop to say hello and we’d talk about gardening—the only thing we did have in common.” The old lady paused, shifting in her chair. “You say her daughter wants to find out who killed her? I’d almost forgotten about her. There was a son, too. I think he went into the service. Typical teenagers—no time for older folks. Reuben and I had never had children. Just as well, maybe.”
“Children,” Renie put in, “are only as bad as you let them be. Are you hinting that Opal’s kids were troublemakers?”
“No, no, not really,” Ziva said. “Children in general, I guess. The Tooms boy and girl weren’t wild—just kind of shiftless. But given that their father was a crook, what would you expect? I was glad when Opal got rid of him. In fact, I heard he ended up in jail. Not surprising. He hung out with some unsavory types. She had a new beau who seemed a notch up, but most women follow a pattern and run to type. It wouldn’t have surprised me if her boyfriend had done it.”
Judith tried to hide her surprise. “Why do you say that?”
Again, Ziva paused. “Sometimes he showed up with people who looked kind of fishy to me. They had loud parties, too.”
“Loud in what way?” Judith asked.
“Music,” Ziva said. “Not live music, but they’d turn the sound way up. I’m not deaf, though I wish I had been. In the summer, you could hear it all the way into my backyard. They’d come outside to party sometimes and the men would act as if they were going to get into a fight. But they never did, or at least I never saw it. Just no class and a lot of cussing. The kind of people who spend their spare time in taverns and bars, like an old dump we had around here called The Meat & Mingle.”
Judith kept a straight face. “I take it you and your husband never went to that . . . place?”
Ziva shook her head. “Somebody told us the food was decent, but it was a low-life hangout as far as the bar was concerned. Reuben and I didn’t drink much. We didn’t eat out very often because we kept kosher.” She again shifted in the chair, apparently trying to get comfortable. “You know, it’s funny how things come back to you. I did see Opal the day she must’ve died. She was planting dahlias by the porch. Out of pots, no less. Too lazy to start the tubers in March. In fact, when I finally got home, I noticed there was a whole box of primroses wilting near the front porch. She obviously didn’t have enough gumption to plant them after she finished the dahlias. I’ve no patience with people who can’t finish a job. I had a doctor’s appointment, so I just said hello and kept going to catch the bus.”
“What time was that?” Judith asked.
“Around noon. My appointment was for one o’clock. I always see doctors at one. They’ve just come back from lunch, so I don’t have to wait.” She leaned forward. “If you ask me,” she said, leaning forward, “if you want to find whoever killed Opal, you should try to run down some of that seedy bunch who drank themselves stupid at The Meat & Mingle.”
Chapter 11
Judith managed to remain composed. Since she’d introduced herself as Judith Flynn, Ziva wouldn’t make the connection with the infamous watering hole. It was Renie, however, who broke the brief silence.
“Gee, Ziva,” she said in the ingenuous manner she could adapt when the mood suited her, “you’re lucky you never knew any of those low-lifers. That is, I heard this neighborhood used to be rife with that type of person. You seem to have emerged unscathed.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Ziva said with a scowl. “Reuben and I had our run-ins with some of those despicable people. Mainly over their ill-behaved children, who had no respect for others or their property. The school bus stops up at the north corner. Those little monsters would take a shortcut through our yard to get home. Reuben and I enjoyed gardening. I still do. Finally we put up that fence to stop them, but some of those bratty teenagers would jump right over it.”
Judith surreptitiously glanced at her watch, which informed her it was a quarter to four. Time was starting to run out. “That must’ve been very annoying,” she said, getting to her feet.
“It was,” Ziva agreed. “I finally spoke to a parent of one of the girls—Watkins, their name was—and told them if they didn’t stop, I’d report them to the school principal. That made an impression.”
“Watkins?” Renie echoed as she also got up from the sofa.
Judith had also picked up on the name. “Would that be Marla and Lee Watkins?”
Ziva car
efully got out of the chair. “I don’t recall. She worked at The Garden of Eden, which is how I knew her. We sometimes bought plants there. They moved a few years after that.”
Judith took a couple of steps toward the door. “Out of the area?”
“I’m not sure,” Ziva admitted, stretching this way and that. “Marla quit her job. I heard she and her husband bought a house overlooking the Sound. That’s expensive property. Maybe they robbed a bank. Or their kids did. Out of sight, out of mind.” She shrugged before opening the door for the cousins. “I’m glad you’re not Jehovah Witnesses, but in my opinion, your ancestors shouldn’t have converted.”
“We can’t rewrite history,” Renie said. “Good thing. My husband likes to eat his lunch off of paper plates. I don’t think they’re kosher.”
On that note, the cousins headed for the Subaru.
“Interesting,” Judith remarked after she got behind the wheel. “Strange how certain people’s names keep popping up on memory lane.”
“Is it?” Renie responded, fastening her seat belt. “It’s like any neighborhood—there are all sorts of connections. Heraldsgate Hill is the same way. And if you break the speed limit, we might make it in time for the feature race at Santa Anita.”
Judith darted a glance at Renie. “You want me to get arrested for speeding in my old hood? That’d be kind of embarrassing.”
“Hey—then you could quiz the arresting officer about some of the other people on your list. Whoever is on patrol probably considers Woody and Joe legends by now.”
“These cops aren’t in Woody’s precinct,” Judith pointed out. “In fact, I don’t know the captain out here.”
“I wonder if Ruby’s memory is coming back yet,” Renie said as they drove under the freeway. “Did you know any cops when you lived here?”
“Only by sight when they had to bust our customers,” Judith said. “The cop who showed up after Dan died was a woman. In fact, she was still there when you and Bill arrived.”