Mystery Bundle (Saints Preserve Us, Pray For Us Sinners, Murder Most Trivial)

by Leigh Ellwood

  Ronnie detected a pencil scratching in the background, followed by a voice that sounded like Dick Humphrey’s—it was a rarity to hear Loni’s husband in the deli on a weeknight. “Tell you what,” Loni said, a singsong lilt to her voice, “I was heading back home in a few anyway. Why don’t I deliver this for you? Dick’s teaching the kids the closing procedures tonight, and I don’t need to be here for that.”

  “You mean you don’t want to be there for that,” Ronnie said, smiling. Ronnie knew better, though. What Loni was trying to say was The transistors in my fillings have detected some unspoken gossip that I. Must. Know. Now!

  “Sure, come on over,” Ronnie conceded. “I think Ritchie’s smart enough to know he’s not going to get much of a tip from a woman on a teacher’s salary who just wrote a whopping down payment on her thirty-year mortgage.”

  She rang off with a saccharine farewell, then headed for the shower to rinse away the day’s sweat and dust. Thoughts of Allayne, Nana and Ethan Fontaine, and the half-eaten cookie, pushed to the backburner over the course of the day, now rose up with the billowing steam enveloping Ronnie as she shampooed, rinsed, and repeated. Lorraine Witz had not called while Ronnie was home, and if she had during the brief time she spent outside chatting with a neighbor while getting mail, Lorraine did not wait to leave a message on her machine. Call waiting had yet to be ordered, too, so Ronnie would not have known if Lorraine tried while she was busy on the phone.

  Damn. She realized her Caller ID device had, for some reason, not been in the same box as the phone and answering machine. That meant it was still at Gina’s, or…

  Ugh! Even as hot water needles stung her backside, Ronnie shivered at the thought of going through the rest of Jim’s things. Until yesterday, when Nana had innocently lifted one lid, Ronnie had not seen so much as a peek of the contents inside, though it was probable that one of her nephews had slipped the device inside one of the boxes as they helped her pack.

  She did not doubt one or both of the boys had snooped around in them while she was not home. Their Uncle Jim had been a child himself in many ways, collecting comic books and NASCAR die cast models, and eating peanut M&Ms by the pound without gaining an ounce of flab. Large family gatherings at the Hayes house usually found him with his nephews in the master bedroom, where he would set up his old Sega game player. Ronnie smiled sadly at the memory of wheedling Jim to sleep during one particular marathon match of flying barrels and kidnapped princesses.

  “Just five more minutes, until I get to the next level,” he would cajole her. Ultimately he would ‘five more minutes’ his way to another hour and three more levels of play, leaving Ronnie with nightmares about being chased by barrel-wielding gorillas.

  Once again, the phone shrieked. Ronnie wrapped herself in a long yellow towel and set aside her memories for later, lest her voice start cracking in the middle of conversation. Loni was probably calling for more detailed directions to the house; it had not occurred to Ronnie that Loni might not be familiar with the new housing development. As small as Ash Lake was, even Ronnie managed to get turned around at times.

  She was not expecting to hear the familiar, deep voice greet her. Ronnie felt her heart catch in her throat. “Hello, Lew,” she said, relieved that he had not sounded angry nor condescending. Not yet, at least.

  “So,” he faltered, “what are you doing right now?”

  Ronnie bit her lip. “Not much, just waiting for Loni to get here with dinner,” she said. “I’m trying out the deli’s new delivery service.”

  “Uh-huh.” Ronnie heard a falling sigh, and wondered if Lew had planned to ask her out to eat.

  “Yeah, the fun never stops here,” she joked, but her laughter sounded hollow in the quiet of her dimly lit house. She pulled the towel tighter around her and moved into the bedroom for a T-shirt and sweat pants. “So, what’s new with you? Any news on Allayne’s death?”

  As soon as the words were out, Ronnie wanted to rewind. She knew what was coming next.

  “Ron, when are you going to get it through your head? There was no murder, there is no case,” Lew answered, annoyed now. “In fact, that’s partly why I was calling, to tell you that Allayne’s death has officially been ruled as natural causes. Her mother and her agent were at the station earlier today. He’s just released a press sheet to the media.”

  “That would explain no news this morning. Did either of them mention a funeral service?”

  “Beth-El Synagogue in Mandarin. I don’t know any more specifics. That agent guy wasn’t very forthcoming, he was in a hurry, and Mrs. Witz was uncharacteristically quiet.” He did not sound condescending, which pleased Ronnie.

  “All the way out there, huh?” The Mandarin neighborhood of Jacksonville was a good ninety-minute drive from Ash Lake on a good day. “Makes no sense to me. Allayne wouldn’t have wanted a Jewish ceremony.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because she said as much to me.” A chill trickled down Ronnie’s back. “The day she died.”

  “I don’t know the particulars, Ronnie. It’s all in Lorraine Witz’s hands now. I’m guessing Mandarin because that’s where the area’s most prominent synagogue is located, and I’m sure Mrs. Witz pulled some strings to allow for Allayne’s grand sendoff.”

  “Even so, Allayne wouldn’t have—”

  “Ron,” Lew interrupted. “It’s not our business how Allayne is put to rest. Funerals are mainly for the living anyway. Let it be.”

  “Right.” Ronnie sighed. “How did Lorraine Witz look? I mean, was she more in control of herself today?” Why was she even asking this, she wondered. How long were she and Lew going to continue conversing like uncomfortable colleagues?

  “Well, she wasn’t wailing like the end of the world was coming, or at least the end of Allayne’s paychecks, if that’s what you’re asking.” The snide tone to his voice had returned.

  “That wasn’t what I was asking,” Ronnie sighed. “I was wondering, though, if Lorraine had said anything about…”

  “Yes?” Lew was now interested and Ronnie debated silently whether or not to mention the chocolate treat congealing on her dresser. How would he react to her having it?

  Who am I kidding, she asked herself. In Lew’s eyes, there was no murder; therefore, there was no poison. At worst, he would probably laugh at her and Lorraine’s delusions. She would then become angry with him and hang up the phone, and they would be no closer to resolving their problems with each other.

  “Never mind,” she said finally. “I don’t want to think about that right now. It’s too depressing. Allayne was my age, and breast cancer runs in my family, too. My mother’s mother died of it. I just don’t want to think that I’m not immune, you know?” She was tired of death. Seemed everybody she knew was leaving too soon. Jim, Allayne… even Lorena, whom she had never known, had been taken as a young girl.

  “Well, looks like you won’t be able to escape it.” Ronnie heard a television in the background. “The news is public now. I’m watching some entertainment show, and there’s Allayne’s photo in an inset box with her birth and death years underneath.”

  “I don’t have a television, thankfully I’ll be spared that.”

  “What? What about that set you had—”

  “That was Bill’s,” Ronnie finished for him as she pawed through the dresser. Only a few months ago, she and Lew had spent many a night cuddled atop her quilts, watching that same set. “It’s still in the basement. I think Bill’s going to hook it up to a satellite dish so he can watch some football this fall, once it’s available in his area.”

  “Looks like I’ll be spending a lot of my free time in your sister’s basement soon.” Ronnie listened for Lew to turn down his set. Then, more softly, “Unless, of course, I’m offered the opportunity to do something more interesting in the months to come.”

  Ronnie said nothing. Lew sighed.

  “Ron, why are we talking like we barely know each other?”

  Ronnie pulled away f
rom the receiver momentarily to slip a blue T-shirt over her head. Beads of bath water missed from her towel dry formed damp spots under her breasts. Don’t do this, she silently willed of Lew. Not now.

  “Whatever it is Loni’s bringing over, will it keep until another day?” Lew asked. “I can be there in five minutes. We could go to the Wild Rooster for a burger and a few beers. Talk a bit.”

  Yes, alcohol would be a welcome additive to our situation, Ronnie wanted to say, but instead she bit her lower lip. What came out was, “I know what you’re going to want to talk about, Lew, and everything I wanted to say on the subject was said a month ago the last time we went to the Rooster.” She ignored the labored groan on the other end. “I don’t feel like getting into another argument, Lew, I just want you to understand how I feel.”

  “I never said I didn’t understand.” Lew’s voice rose. “I just want to know why you get so damned uncomfortable every time I try to put my arm around you. You freeze up like a statue.”

  “I don’t do that,” Ronnie said defensively. “I’m not afraid of intimacy, Lew. I think I’ve let enough time pass since Jim’s death to not feel guilty about being with another man. It’s just that…” Here came the old song and dance Ronnie had wanted to avoid. “…that I’m not ready to be with another man. Lew, you know how much I care for you—”

  “Do you, now?”

  “I’m just not ready to go to bed with you.”

  Ronnie could feel her ear numb from the sudden cool. “This doesn’t mean it might never happen,” she added more complacently. “It’s just that we have… er, hadn’t been going out for very long—”

  “Seven months, Ronnie.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, Lew,” Ronnie cried. “I hadn’t realized there was a minimum time limit on celibacy in a relationship.”

  “Plus we’ve known each other since the fifth grade,” Lew said.

  “Well, I’ve known Dwayne since the fourth grade,” Ronnie shot back. “Should I have dated him first? Slept with him before I married Jim?”

  “Don’t get cute with me, girl.”

  Me, cute? Ronnie gripped the receiver, her knuckles white. A quick glance in her dresser mirror revealed a still damp, frustrated woman with stringy, dark brown hair and ill-fitting makeshift pajamas. Let Lew see this, make him rethink wanting to wake up next to me in the morning.

  “Ron?” Lew called, breaking into her thoughts.

  Ronnie took a deep breath and relaxed her grip on the phone. “Not that it’s any of your business, Lew, but I’m more old-fashioned than you think,” she said tersely. “I waited until my wedding night. I’m probably the only woman in our graduating class—maybe the only woman in the whole state that year—to do so. But that’s just me, and that’s how I feel. I don’t think—”

  “Wow, you really waited, huh?” Clearly she had taken Lew by surprise. Jim must never have volunteered the information during those long nights on patrol when he and Lew were partners. “So,” Lew added, “are you saying you want to get married?”

  Any other day, in a more light-hearted situation, Ronnie would have relished the panic emerging in Lew’s voice and thought of a response to further draw out the sheriff’s anxiety. Now, though, she was too tired and hungry. Where was Loni with dinner? Was she trying to call for directions and getting a busy signal?

  “I didn’t say that either, Lew. I’m just saying that I don’t want to rush what we have, and that if and when we do make love I want it to mean something.”

  “It would mean something, damn it!” Lew said hotly. “I’m not out for a quick lay, I want to be with you because I’m in love with you!”

  Ronnie gasped. In all the months they had been together, Lew had never before said that out loud.

  Her voice trembled. “If that were true, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, Lew. You would be perfectly fine waiting.”

  “You know, you’re just like your sister, repressed and hung-up on outdated dogma,” Lew grumbled.

  “Hey!” Ronnie had a feeling Lew would drag Gina into the conversation. Though he and Gina had dated in college, Ronnie knew little of their relationship since she had been in Tallahassee getting her own degree. It had never been a comfortable subject to breach, though Gina had encouraged Ronnie to continue dating Lew after their first date to a rock concert the year before. Now, Lew had told her more than she wanted to know about his relationship with her sister.

  “And,” he continued, “since you don’t want to get married, it looks like I won’t be getting any.”

  Ronnie felt the blood in her head cool and rush to her hands and feet. “I wouldn’t say that,” she said evenly. “You’re free to get whatever you want, whenever you want, from whomever you want. You just won’t be getting it here.”

  “Ron—”

  But Ronnie had mashed the off button on the keypad and threw the receiver across the room. It hit an open expanse of white wall, creating a small chink as flecks of paint and plaster fluttered to the carpet. Ronnie stared a few moments at the brown smudge crowning the blemish in her brand new home.

  “Damn it!” Now Bill would have to come over, patch the mark and probably use a spackle of a different shade, thereby leaving a noticeable spot, like a zit. Ronnie pondered which one of her framed family photos would have to be hung in that space as the doorbell sounded in the distance.

  Ronnie welcomed the reprieve as she straightened her T-shirt and padded barefoot to the foyer. Loni was a flesh-colored specter through the oval frosted glass of her front door. As Ronnie invited her inside she noticed the baseball cap on the middle-aged woman’s head on which was stitched French Bakery and Deli, though somebody had covered French with masking tape and scribbled FREEDOM in black block letters.

  Loni held up two large, white bags and followed Ronnie’s gaze to her cap. “Oh, this,” she huffed. “It was Dick’s idea. I think it looks plain silly. I mean, we’re not French, and it’s just a name. Everybody here knows better than to think…”

  Ronnie, however, was too torn between wanting to laugh at the hat and bawling over the blow-up with Lew. She chose the latter, crowding the doorway as Loni set the bags on the threshold and enveloped Ronnie in a bear hug.

  “Oh, I know it hurts, sweetie.” Loni shushed Ronnie as she patted her long, damp hair. “I miss Allayne, too.”

  ~ * ~

  “So, what all have you heard?”

  Ronnie had regained her composure long enough to invite Loni in to see the rest of the townhouse. The older woman then set up dinner on Ronnie’s coffee table while Ronnie stifled more tears in the refrigerator as she retrieved the last of her soda. Her only moment of laughter came earlier when Loni carefully lowered herself to the carpet, “settling my bulk evenly around me,” as she told Ronnie.

  Loni dished out plastic utensils and Styrofoam packages. The tuna salad came in two small plastic containers. “I brought you a little extra,” she said. “I figure with you moving and all, you probably haven’t had time to shop. Why else would I be here?”

  “Thanks.” Ronnie intended to pay the difference anyway, knowing Loni would refuse. She would just leave the extra money with her as a tip; perhaps Ritchie would eventually get the money.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Ronnie added as she handed Loni a soda and dropped to a cross-legged position next to her. She waited patiently as Loni swallowed a bite of chicken salad sandwich. “What have you heard? Or seen?”

  “Entertainment Tonight came on just as I was leaving the deli. Just standard celebrity obituary, clips of Allayne on Southwest Memorial, in a fancy dress attending some Hollywood party, blah blah.” Loni waved a hand. “I didn’t stay to see all of it. I figure CNN will rerun it later.”

  “You don’t know anything about a funeral either, huh?”

  “No, and believe me, I’ve exhausted all my regular channels,” Loni spoke into her can, and Ronnie frowned. There was no mistaking the upward spike in pitch as the words were said.

  “You lie,�
� Ronnie accused, picking at a shoestring French fry. Loni stopped eating and lowered her eyes.

  “I should know better than to try and fool a college professor. The dog didn’t eat my homework, either.”

  Ronnie leaned forward and patted Loni’s arm to show no hard feelings. “I seem to recall, the night Allayne died, you were talking about your friend Alice’s daughter, Chloe…”

  Loni nodded. “Chloe’s friend Dakota works at Two Witt, yes.”

  Dakota, who liked to hide behind doors. Lorraine Witz thought she was stealing from the house… what else was she doing?