Just in Time

by Suzanne Trauth

Geez.

  * * * *

  Within the hour, we had cleared the dishes, distributed the chips, and I’d introduced the poker neophytes to seven card stud and Texas Hold ’Em.

  “I forget. Which is higher, three of a kind, or two pair?” Mildred asked.

  “Three of a kind,” I said and shuffled the cards.

  “Is there a wild card this time? I like wild cards,” said Lola. “They always give you an extra edge.”

  “Wild cards are for newbies. Real poker players don’t need ’em,” said Penny, and she pushed her glasses up her nose.

  “Well, I’m a newbie so bring on the wild cards,” said Carol, and she took a bite of tiramisu. When she’d learned what Bill was cooking, she’d insisted on keeping with the Italian theme. She stared at Lola. “With your hair like that, swept over one shoulder, I’m seeing Veronica Lake.”

  “Who?” asked Penny.

  “An actress from the forties. She’s in a lot of late night classic movies,” I said.

  “I see the resemblance,” said Mildred.

  Lola smiled serenely. “I’ve been told that before. Whose deal is it?”

  Before I could stop myself—must have been the wine—I blurted out today’s finding. “Did any of you know that Ruby’s actual name was Veronica?”

  “What?” asked Lola.

  Penny attempted to put a lid on this particular bit of trivia. “She never said anything to me about her real name. If her name were Veronica, I’d know about it. It would be in the production notes.”

  “Well, looks like she kept a secret from you,” I said.

  “Dodie, how do you know that?” asked Lola.

  Mentioning Ruby had the effect of a wet blanket. It brought everyone back to the harsh reality of the murder, and they gawked at me, waiting for an answer. “I was fooling around on the Internet, and when I Googled Ruby’s name…up came some links that led me to an article about her life in Indiana. It referred to her as Veronica R. Passonata. I guess the R was for Ruby,” I finished lamely.

  Carol whistled softly, Mildred and Edna jiggled their heads, and Penny adamantly refused to believe that something as important as an actor’s name had gotten past her clipboard. Lola was silent, her face full of questions. They would have to wait until later.

  “Were there other things about Ruby we didn’t know?” Mildred wondered.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “She tipped the shampoo girls with a twenty dollar bill once,” said Carol.

  “Really? She didn’t look like she had money to spare,” said Mildred. “Anyway, she kept to herself.”

  “One time, during a rehearsal break, I caught her typing on an iPad. She thought I was looking over her shoulder and turned it over. Told me to mind my own business,” Penny offered. “As if I cared that she was surfing the Internet for investment websites.”

  “So you were looking over her shoulder?” Lola asked.

  Penny sat up straighter. “As PM I gotta keep eyes and ears on everything and everyone,” she said sternly.

  “Investments? Ruby never seemed to have more than two pennies to rub together,” said Carol.

  “She certainly could be starchy,” said Edna. “Might have been the…” Edna tipped her hand upward to mime Ruby and her flask.

  The game was on hold. “Is that all we know about Ruby? Her drinking, her finances, or lack thereof?” Never mind that I was privy to Bill’s discovery of her Excel spreadsheet with the record of regular thousand dollar payments.

  “Ruby could play the ivory off the piano keys,” said Edna.

  “Dodie and I searched her apartment for the cue sheets. It was so clean and neat. No full ashtrays or empty liquor bottles.” Lola said. “It didn’t seem like Ruby at all.”

  “She gave me vegan recipes,” Penny blurted out.

  We all gawked at her. “You’re a vegan?” Lola asked.

  “Not yet. But I’m thinking of becoming healthy,” Penny said defensively.

  “Ruby smoked and drank but was a vegan? Talk about a mystery,” I said.

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  Edna stood. “Have a code 8.” She hurried off to the bathroom and poker night ended.

  As I cleaned up the dining room, I mulled over one piece of information. Penny’s snooping confirmed Ruby’s interest in investments. My cell rang. I didn’t recognize the caller ID.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Dodie O’Dell?”

  “Professor Yurkov?” I said.

  “Yes. I hope I am not calling you too late,” Boris said apologetically.

  “Not at all.”

  “I remembered the name of Ruby’s young man. It was Otto.”

  We talked another minute, Boris repeating his surprise at Ruby’s state of mind the day he overheard the argument. He thanked me again for the cannoli, and extended an open invitation to drop in whenever I was in Manhattan. He was a thoughtful man.

  I turned off the lights. Otto was an unusual name. Where had I seen it before?

  12

  The clanging alarm yanked me from a deep sleep. I reached out and slapped the snooze button, one eye peeking out from under a tired lid. I’d been restless until three a.m. Thoughts tumbled around my mind like wet clothes in the dryer. I finally surrendered to sheer exhaustion. Ruby had taken up residence in my brain and every fact I knew about her kept replaying on a mental loop. I rolled over and extended my arm to the pillow where Bill’s head should have been. It was empty. I didn’t have a chance to discuss Boris’s phone call last night, as Bill was already snoring when I dragged myself to bed. Apparently, he rose early. I slipped on a sweat suit and headed to the kitchen where I could smell fresh coffee. Yes! A shot of caffeine would do the trick.

  “Thanks for the coffee,” I said as I rounded the corner into the kitchen.

  There was no sign of Bill but a scribbled note on the table, indicated that his presence was required in the department at eight a.m. this morning. I drank a cup of coffee, and jumped in the shower, letting the warm water stream off my head and neck. I needed some oomph to face the day and complete my to do list. That meant two things: dressing for comfort in capris and a lightweight cotton blouse, and stopping by Coffee Heaven for a caramel macchiato.

  My street was empty for a change; no need to share trivia with the neighbors or hear them ask how Bill was doing. The day was bright and sunny, a clear, beautiful, summer morning with a gentle breeze and puffy clouds sailing across the blue expanse. On days like this down the shore, my mother used to call the clouds heaven’s cotton balls.

  I traveled over Ames and down Fairfield. Etonville was just waking up, a line of cars inched down Main, herky-jerky, grabbing parking spots. I took a chance and crept into a space by a hydrant. I only planned to be a minute in Coffee Heaven, and sent a request to the parking gods to keep the town’s meter maid busy until I returned.

  As I opened the door, the tinkling of the welcome bells mingled with the chatter of patrons creating a pleasant blanket of white noise. I stepped to the counter. Jocelyn looked up from a booth where she was pouring coffee and hurried to my side.

  “Dodie, am I glad to see you,” she said, breathless.

  “Hi Jocelyn. I’ll have my regular—and extra icing on the cinnamon roll.”

  “Sorry to miss the poker game, but yesterday I was a woman on a mission,” she said confidentially.

  “It was fine. Penny filled in. How did it go?”

  She wrote up my ticket. “That Walter can be thick. Know what I mean?”

  Oh yeah. “What happened?”

  “I hung around the open house until everybody else was gone, then kind of edged my way to where Walter was standing, staring off into space.” She mimicked Walter’s stance. “He can be a little quirky too.”

  Takes one to know one. “Sure,” I said.

 
“So I said, ‘I’m interested in this house.’ And he said, ‘Jocelyn?’ Like that. ‘Jocelyn?’” She seemed overwhelmed by Walter’s attention.

  “Then what?”

  “What do you mean ‘then what’?”

  “I mean, what happened next? Did he say anything else?” I asked.

  “He didn’t need to. He said my name. That was enough.” Jocelyn floated off to get my order.

  All it took for Jocelyn to walk on air was Walter saying her name…I wanted to laugh, but then I remembered the first time Bill said “Dodie.” I got it.

  * * * *

  I unlocked the door of the Windjammer. There was an hour before anyone would show up, and I relished the quiet. My caramel macchiato and warm cinnamon bun kept me company. I sat in my back booth with vegetable and meat inventory sheets and Henry’s menu for the week, attempting to reconcile the two. He planned to serve his traditional meat loaf tonight as a special, but decided to let Wilson have his way with it. Both the Windjammer and the regular customers of the Windjammer relied on the old standbys; sometimes folks needed food they could count on. Wilson was not into old standbys.

  Fajitas and shrimp with pasta were on the menu this week as well, along with an experiment suggested by Wilson for tomorrow: a tapas menu featuring a variety of small plates. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but his lineup included various flatbreads, chorizo-filled dates wrapped in bacon, lamb meatballs, fingerling potatoes, vegetable skewers, and simple small salads. They sounded delicious, but preparation-heavy. We’d need all hands on deck, which meant confirming that Enrico and Carmen could work that night.

  I made notes on the meals, and found myself scribbling in the margin of the inventory sheet. Ruby: thousand dollar deposits, twenty dollar tips to salon girls, Ruby and Dale discussing finances…money issues swirled around her. What did it all mean? Finally, there was Boris’s memory: hers was a voice full of vengeance.

  My cell binged. It was Lola texting: Veronica? What was that about? What are you not telling me? I’ll stop by WJ. Today would be a good time to fill Lola in on my trip to New York.

  The front door opened in a whoosh. Henry, frowning, his shoulders stooped, tromped in and plopped onto a barstool. He looked completely defeated.

  “Hey, it can’t be that bad. Is it Wilson? He’s coming along and by the way, your Saturday night contest winner was a hit. I overheard audience members raving about your chicken and cauliflower.”

  Henry waved me off. “It’s not the restaurant.”

  “Oh. So…?”

  “My future son-in-law’s parents are meeting us in New York tomorrow. My wife has this whole day planned.”

  “Nice,” I said hopefully.

  “I told her I can’t close down the restaurant for the night,” he said darkly. He raised his chin. “The only option is Wilson.”

  Wilson would be chef for the day. In my nearly four years managing the Windjammer, Henry had closed the restaurant only twice: once for a week in August last year giving everyone a summer holiday; and once to repair leaks in the roof from ice damage. He rarely took a day off, and when he did, Enrico took over and we simplified the menu. To suggest that Henry was a control freak was an understatement. “Uh-huh,” I said impassively.

  “What do you think?” Henry asked.

  My opinion? Shut down. But that was unfair to Wilson—after all, he was the sous chef. He was responsible for several evening specials. How much damage could he do? Don’t answer that, I told myself. “I say give him a chance. We have small plate night planned for tomorrow…we’ll need Enrico and Carmen to come in anyway.”

  Henry harrumphed.

  “It will all work out. Good for Wilson, good for you to get a break.”

  Henry slumped his way into the kitchen.

  Lunch was well underway. Henry’s crab bisque vanished rapidly. The black bean burger—another attempt to expand the palates of Etonville—received a mixed review. Most of the patrons didn’t understand why Henry didn’t serve his “regular” special burgers, and leave well enough alone.

  “Who needs beans on a bun?” one of the Banger sisters asked.

  “They’re not exactly beans, in the normal sense. They’re mashed up with spices and herbs and formed into burger patties,” I said. My explanation fell on deaf ears. “They’re delicious.”

  “I’ll take one,” the other sister chirped. “I’d like the cheese, tomato, lettuce, and onion, but hold the beans.”

  “Right.” I motioned to Gillian to take their order.

  “Hey, O’Dell,” Penny waved a menu. She was on her lunch break from the post office. “Good poker game last night. I won fifty cents,” she cackled.

  “High stakes,” I teased. “Next time we’ll have a two dollar buy-in.”

  “You know,” she said seriously, “we should have a tournament. Like Wide World of Poker?”

  “That’s a thought.”

  “BTW, I was cleaning up the theater yesterday and I found this.” She withdrew an iPad that had Ruby’s name spelled out in stick-on letters, like the scrapbook.

  “That’s a…”

  “Same one I caught Ruby surfing the web on.”

  The air around me shifted. “Where did you find it?” I asked.

  She cleaned her glasses with the tail of her postal uniform shirt. “In the piano bench.”

  “Penny, you should have taken it to the police department. That might be evidence,” I said, my pulse quickening.

  Penny looked stricken, her mouth forming an O, and thrust the notebook at me. “You’re in bed with the chief—” she caught herself. “I mean, you see him a lot so you can, you know, pass it on.” She checked her watch. “Gotta get back to work.” Penny jumped up and darted out of the restaurant.

  Ruby used the iPad to surf the Internet! I hurried to my back booth and stuffed the notebook in my bag.

  Benny rushed over. “Trouble in paradise. We ran out of crab bisque, half a dozen people returned their bean burgers, and Henry is throwing a hissy fit over Wilson’s meatloaf recipe. You better get in there.”

  “On my way,” I said and bounded into the kitchen.

  * * * *

  Lola picked at her Cobb salad dumbfounded. I’d recounted my trip to Maynard Institute on Saturday, and swore her to secrecy regarding Pauli’s poking around on the Internet. She was, after all, my BFF. I had to unload my findings on someone besides Bill, who was appreciative but not as fascinated as I was about Ruby’s background.

  “Dodie, about Ruby…you are…” She searched for the right word.

  “Obsessed?” I offered.

  Lola nodded.

  “I know. But I can’t get her life story out of my mind. Now that I know her real name was Veronica, I’m more intrigued than ever.”

  “But what does her background have to do with her murder?”

  “Nothing, probably. Bill and the Creston police are investigating everyone she had contact with at both theaters, but I don’t know what they’ve discovered. I’m out of the loop.” Not completely, I thought. After all, Bill did share details of her death and his finding the Excel spreadsheet. But, so far, no mention of persons of interest. “I’m not a part of the investigation.”

  “But you are looking into Ruby’s life,” Lola said.

  I was. We chatted awhile longer, and then Lola left. She was meeting Walter at the theater to review notes before Wednesday’s brush-up rehearsal—also to review Lola’s relationship with Dale…

  It was nearing three o’clock, the usual time for my late afternoon break when the Windjammer was most quiet. I needed some fresh air and a breather from the chaos of the day before the evening mayhem began. I had just enough time to complete my plan of action.

  I placed my lunch plate in the dirty dish bin. “Benny, I’ll be back in a while.”

  “I’d like to leave early to
night? Need to put the princess to bed.”

  The princess was Benny’s six-year-old daughter. His wife worked some nights, and when she did, Benny did solo parenting.

  “When dinner is up and running, you can take off.”

  “Appreciate it.” He lowered his voice. “Heard about Henry leaving the kitchen in Wilson’s hands tomorrow.”

  “I think Wilson is up to it.” I crossed my fingers.

  The humidity had increased from this morning, I noticed, as I climbed into the driver’s seat of my Metro. The brilliant blue sky was overcast with gunmetal-gray clouds. Never mind, I’d deal with the raindrops. I backed out of my space and hit the gas. By my calculation, I could drive to Creston, revisit Ruby’s apartment, and be back in an hour or so. I kept my plan to myself. I didn’t even share my intentions with Lola. How could I explain that my instincts were in a tug-of-war with my common sense when it came to the accompanist? I had the intense feeling that if I could find the correct piece of her life’s puzzle, I’d have Ruby figured out. Bill and his colleagues could arrest whomever for her death; I’d have deciphered her life.

  Traffic was light on State Route 53, and I hit the outskirts of the city in twenty minutes. My GPS Genie helped me retrace the route that Lola and I took on our first visit: Barrow Street to Hamilton Avenue. I parked my Metro down the block from Ruby’s apartment building, walked past the tavern and post office, and stopped at the door of the deli. On a whim, I walked in. Behind the counter, a young man with a cheerful countenance, curly brown hair, and a full beard acknowledged my presence.

  “Can I help you?” he said.

  “I’ll have a regular coffee, black,” I said, and smiled back.

  “Coming right up.”

  While he fixed my drink, I looked around. The store was empty, the shelves half full, the floor tile was worn and grimy. I was willing to bet this deli had seen better days.

  “Here you go.” He set my cup on the counter and I handed him a five dollar bill.

  While he made change, I took a sip of my coffee. “Um. Good. You make this?”

  “Yeah. I do everything,” he said, a tad ruefully. “My uncle owns the store, but he’s been ill lately. Anyway, not much business around here.” He handed me some change.