“Leave the mystery solving up to the professionals.”
Oh yeah, that was me grumbling to myself and sounding all bitchy and bitter. Like anyone could blame me? It was an hour since Quinn had left with that parting shot, and even though he and his cop buddies and the paramedics were gone, I was still at the memorial. That’s because Ella had called and asked me to stick around. Apparently, a couple reporters were being pretty pushy about getting the inside track on the murder, and photos to go with it, and she wanted to make sure no one snuck around that crime scene tape and got into the building. Why didn’t I just lock up the memorial and get the hell out of Dodge? My thoughts exactly, especially once the coroner came and left with Marjorie’s body. No such luck. See, Ella also wanted me to wait for the cleaning crew that would be by to clean up . . . well, everything that needed to be cleaned up. For now, the place was as quiet as the tomb it was. Except for my grumbling. With time on my hands and nothing better to do, I did what I always do best: I obsessed as only a woman can who’s been insulted, minimized, and irritated beyond reason by the man she’d once loved.
I was trying to keep myself busy and focused by looking through the latest issue of the employee newsletter, but let’s face it, reading about landscaping plans for the fall and the upcoming holiday schedule would never be enough to get my mind off Quinn. I side-handed the newsletter across the office and watched the pages hit, scatter, and skid down the wall.
Even that didn’t make me feel one bit better.
But never let it be said that Pepper Martin is not self-aware. I was plenty pissed at Quinn, sure, but I knew there was one—and only one—way to make myself feel better. Not incidentally, what I had in mind would also make him feel worse. I am hardly the type who’s into revenge, at least except in the most extreme cases (which this was), but as soon as I thought of the plan, things started looking up.
I rooted through the desk for a pad of paper, and when I didn’t find one, I went over to the door and the visitors’ book we keep there for people to sign. I ripped out some of the pages in the back of the book where nobody would notice they were gone, grabbed the nearby pen, and got down to some serious self-healing. The cure for my obsession was obvious: if I was going to silence Quinn’s voice inside my head and rid myself of the memory of that condescending look he gave me when he said, “Leave the mystery solving up to the professionals,” I would simply have to solve Marjorie’s murder before he did.
Who Wanted Marjorie Dead?
I was writing on top of the first piece of paper almost before I sat back down. I underlined the words and tapped the pen against my chin. It didn’t take me long to fill in the blank below my heading right between the lines that asked visitors for address and e-mail.
Everyone who ever met her, I wrote in big, bold letters.
Obviously, this train of thought would take me nowhere, and I forced myself to focus and started again.
Gloria Henninger, I wrote, because after all, that’s exactly what Gloria had told me, that she’d like to kill Marjorie herself. I didn’t add Ray’s name since I didn’t know what he and Marjorie were fighting about that night I’d visited her so I had no way of knowing if it was serious. I did write down Sunshine, and I know it sounds crazy but then, I was getting kind of punchy from being locked up in the memorial all morning. Besides, as far as I could see, if the dog had the opportunity, she would have been all for offing Marjorie.
This, of course, did not get me very far.
I plinked the pen against the desktop, thinking while I listened to the rap, rap, rap. That’s when I remembered that frantic message Marjorie had left on my office phone the night before.
“The one you erased,” I reminded myself. I consoled myself with the fact that anyone in their right mind would have erased a phone message from Marjorie. Especially when the anyone in question couldn’t have possibly known that Marjorie was going to go and get herself killed.
I grabbed another sheet of visitors’ book paper and wrote down as much of the message as I could remember. Marjorie said it was an emergency, I was sure of that. Marjorie said she needed to see me the instant I got to work. Marjorie said it was extremely important.
My only question now was if her extremely important issue had anything to do with her murder.
There was no better way to try to figure it out than to go to the scene of the crime.
With that in mind, I left the office, ducked under the crime scene tape draped across the stairway, and headed up the winding, narrow steps to the balcony. It didn’t take a crime scene investigator or any special “professional” (yes, even in my head, the word had a sarcastic ring to it) to see why the uniformed cops had called in Mr. Big Guns Harrison. There were stuttering black scuff marks all across the floor. They started over near the doorway that led onto the balcony and zigzagged all over the place. They stopped abruptly at the railing.
Like Marjorie had locked her legs and fought like crazy to keep from getting dumped over the side.
A shiver raced up my back and over my shoulders, and though it wasn’t especially chilly in the memorial, I hugged my arms around myself and took a few careful steps closer to the railing. From up here, the pool of Marjorie’s blood against the marble floor below looked bigger than I’d expected. It was dark and sticky looking, and it was starting to dry in streaks where the team from the coroner’s office had lifted Marjorie’s body to haul it away.
“We were forced by circumstances and this intolerable ruckus to postpone our meeting. I am particularly put out by this most incommodious turn of events.”
Yes, I was startled by the voice behind me, and yes, I did squeal. I also pressed a hand to my heart and whirled around.
“Don’t do that to me!” I ordered the president. “Especially not when I’m standing on a balcony where somebody just took a header.”
It took him a moment to process the unfamiliar word, but he got it, finally. He nodded and looked over the side, too. “It is truly a terrible way for any person to die,” he said. “All that blood, it reminds me of the Battle of Shiloh. That was in ’62, and I was a brigade commander under Major General Don Carlos Buell. We had just . . .”
He rattled on. I didn’t listen. That was 1862 he was talking about, but even if it had been 1962, I wouldn’t have been interested. Ancient history is not my thing, and I wasn’t going to remember any of it, anyway. Afraid he’d go on and on (and on) if I didn’t stop him, I just jumped right in.
“It would be nice if I could figure out what exactly happened to Marjorie. You know, to satisfy the whole balance of the Universe, right and wrong thing and all that.” I figured it was the kind of argument that would appeal to a politician, even a dead one. Which was why I focused on the justice angle and completely left out the whole Quinn/revenge factor because, really, it was none of his business. “It sure would help if you could fill me in on what went on here this morning.”
“Help? Who? Most certainly not that unfortunate woman. Nothing I tell you will bring her back.”
“Then could you just pop over . . . wherever . . . and talk to her? Ask her what happened and who dun it? That sure would make things easier.”
“Who did it,” he grumbled. “And no, I cannot accommodate you in this matter. It is not the way these things work.” When he turned and marched toward the stairway, I followed. “I’ve already told you I am unable to help. I was preoccupied this morning with matters of state. The single thing I noticed was that the woman was here early. Far earlier than you arrived.”
“Was she alone?”
“When I saw her, yes. Most assuredly.”
“Where did she—” We were almost at the stairway and I stopped for a moment. There were sections of the memorial where visitors weren’t allowed, and those sections were roped off and had signs nearby that said, CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC. The sign at the bottom of the stairway that led up to the old ballroom on the third floor was upside down. Automatically, I righted it and kept on with my questions. “W
here did she hang out?” I asked the president.
I swear, his cheeks got red. No easy thing for a ghost. “I . . . I beg your pardon!” he sputtered. “I assure you, I certainly saw nothing hanging out, and if I had—”
OK, I had a laugh at the old guy’s expense. When I was done, I explained. “Hanging out. It means, like, the place she was when she was wherever she was when she was here.”
His eyebrows dipped. “Your grammar is deplorable.” He floated down the stairs.
I took the more conventional route and got back down to business. “So Marjorie . . . she was . . . ?”
“On the balcony, of course. You know that. But earlier, she was downstairs.”
“In the ladies’ room? Or in your crypt?”
I expected another lecture that included some nonsense about how indecent it was to even mention the ladies’ room. Instead, the president shook his head. “As I said earlier, I was preoccupied. I paid her no mind. I really cannot say where she went.”
He stopped floating at the main floor. I kept on going. If Marjorie had spent even a few minutes of the morning downstairs, I wanted to know why. I checked out the ladies’ room, and knew right away that she hadn’t been in there. The fixture above the sink had one of those curlicue, energy-saving lightbulbs in it. After it’s switched on, it takes forever for the bulb to brighten. Every employee and every volunteer knows to turn it on just once in the morning, then turn it off again right before the memorial is closed. It was still off.
When I stepped back into the hallway between the ladies’ room and the crypt, the president was waiting there for me.
It was more than a little creepy glancing from the President Garfield at my side to his flag-draped casket.
Rather than think about it, I went into the crypt. The crypt below the rotunda is shaped like an octagon. The president’s coffin along with that of his wife, Lucretia, are on display behind an iron fence at the center of the room. So are two urns. I knew from working at the cemetery that they contain the ashes of his daughter and son-in-law.
I did a circuit around the caskets and stopped right back where I’d started. “I don’t know what Marjorie could have been doing down here.”
“Paying her respects?”
I think it was a whatcha-call-it, a rhetorical question, but I was too deep in thought to care. “She’s got pictures of you everywhere. And books and all these weird sorts of trinkets. I don’t see why she’d have to come down here to pay her respects.” Like it might actually help me think, I went around again and my gaze traveled from the coffin of the president to that of his wife.
“You know . . .” I edged into what I knew could be a touchy subject. “I’ve been wondering . . . about that girl, Lucia Calhoun. If there really were any children—?”
I never got as far as even finishing the question before President Garfield started rumbling like a thundercloud. “Young lady,” he growled, “I understand that society these days is far more casual and less structured than it was back in my day, but really, I do not think that excuses a complete lack of decorum, do you?”
I wrinkled my nose. I wasn’t sure when we’d gone from discussing his love life to talking about decorating.
“It is simply not appropriate for you to be asking about such things,” he snarled.
“But Marjorie thought you were related.” My guess was this wasn’t news since Marjorie talked about it all the time, and Marjorie spent all her time in the memorial. “And now Marjorie is dead and—”
“Then it really cannot possibly matter, can it?”
I would have argued the point if Jeremiah Stone didn’t poof onto the scene. He was carrying a stack of papers and he tapped one finger against it. “You really must get these papers signed, Mr. President,” he said. “They are quite essential.”
“Yes, of course.” The president turned to me. “As you can see, I have matters of import to deal with. The ship of state cannot captain itself, and I must provide Mr. Stone here with the proper example. It is my high privilege and sacred duty to educate my successors and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the inheritance which awaits them.”
Like there was anything I could say to that?
They vanished and I stood there alone in the crypt, wondering what to do next. I mean, besides wait for the cleaning people. In the hopes they might show up sometime soon, I went back upstairs and thought about everything that had happened and all I didn’t know and couldn’t figure out.
“But Mr. President . . .” Jeremiah Stone was nowhere to be seen, but his voice floated on the air from the nothingness he’d disappeared into. “We must get your signature on these papers, sir. It is imperative.”
Signatures made me think about Marjorie and all that stuff—including the Garfield autographs—she had in her house.
And thinking about visiting Marjorie that night made me think about Ray.
And thinking about Ray . . . well, I knew Ray might not have all the answers. When it came to my investigation, he might not have any of them. But something told me that a guy who had the nerve to actually visit Marjorie at home just might be a good place to start.
7
I would much rather save my empty calories for the occasional martini than waste them on fast food. Which was why, though the rest of northeast Ohio was flocking to a new franchise called Big Daddy Burgers, I had never been inside the front door of one of the distinctive purple and white buildings. The next day was Saturday and apparently a whole bunch of people were out for lunch celebrating the weekend. It took me a while to find a parking place at the BDB nearest to the cemetery, and even longer to get up to the front of the line so I could ask one of the harried-looking teenagers who was packing the orders and ringing the register if Ray Gwitkowski was working that day.
“The old guy?” The girl’s eyebrow was pierced, and the little silver stud in it jumped when she gave me a look. Clearly, she was trying to figure out why someone as young and stylish as I was needed to speak to Ray. She poked a thumb over her shoulder toward the kitchen behind the counter and I noticed Ray flipping burgers at a grill. He was wearing an apron that matched the purple shirts of the kids taking the orders. “It’s not his break time. I know, because he goes right after me, but, well . . .” She glanced around, and since none of the workers looked as if they were old enough to drive and nobody seemed to be in charge of the chaos, she shrugged. “I don’t think anybody would notice if you went back there. If anyone sees you, they’re going to think you’re from the main office, anyway, since you’re old, too.”
So much for young and stylish.
Insult aside, I managed a tight smile and ducked behind the counter before anyone could tell me I didn’t belong. I’d like to say Ray was happy to see me, but truth be told, he was so busy flipping burgers about the size of a playing card, adding cheese, and stirring the chopped onions browning nearby, he didn’t exactly have a chance.
“I checked your file at the cemetery,” I said by way of explanation, even though Ray didn’t have time to ask for one. “I saw that you have a part-time job here and—”
One of the kids at the counter interrupted me with a shrill, “Big Daddy special. Hold the onions. Extra cheese.”
“Hold the onions. Extra cheese,” Ray mumbled under his breath. He tossed a few more frozen squares of meat on the grill and flipped like his life depended on it.
“It’s just that I’ve been thinking about everything that happened at the cemetery and—”
“Baby Big Daddy! Extra onions. No cheese. Extra well done.”
“Extra well done.” Ray slid a burger nearer to the center of the grill, where it sizzled like mad.
“It’s just that—” I dodged out of the way of a skinny kid carrying a box filled with hamburger buns. “With everything that happened, you know, I thought—”
“Wish I could help you, kid.” Ray took his eye off the grill long enough to shoot me a smile. “I don’t have time to talk. Dang!” Ray stabbed his flipper
under the burger at the center of the grill. The patties were paper thin, and that one had already gone from raw to crispy. “I hate when that happens,” he grumbled. He tossed the burger into a nearby trash can and moved another one over to take its place. “If the owners weren’t so cheap and would hire a few extra people around here, I wouldn’t have to worry about burning food and wasting it. As it is, I’m the only grill chef at this time of the day, and Saturdays are always busy.” Expertly, he whisked a couple burgers off the grill, slid them onto buns, stepped to the side where he could better reach the pickles, lettuce, and tomatoes in plastic containers, and grabbed a squirt bottle of ketchup.
“Waiting on that Big Daddy!” the kid up front called out.
Ray grimaced, torn between the burgers that needed to be dressed and finished and the ones still cooking on the grill.
And I knew an opportunity when I saw it. Even when it was one I would rather not have recognized.
There was a purple apron like Ray’s hanging from a hook next to the grill, and I grabbed it, looped it over my head, and took the squirt bottle out of his hand.
I hope it goes without saying that I have never worked in a fast-food restaurant. No matter. The work was just as interesting as I always imagined it would be. After a couple minutes, my brain turned off and my hands moved automatically over the buns.
Ketchup. Squirt.
Mustard. Squirt.
One slice of tomato. One piece of lettuce. Three pickles.
Ketchup. Squirt.
Mustard. Squirt.
“Too much mustard,” Ray critiqued while he stirred the onions. “Not enough ketchup on that one. Here.” He thrust a plastic container of grilled onions at me. “Add those. No! Not to that one.” I stopped with my hand suspended in midair above a square of meat. “That’s the Big Daddy special. No onions. Extra cheese.”
“No onions. Extra cheese.” I was beginning to sound as mindless as all the other Big Daddy workers, and I snapped myself out of it and slid Ray a look, all the while not missing a squirt-squirt-lettuce-tomato-pickle beat.
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